It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Why does a soup kitchen have to have a religious label? If you want to give soup to the hungry, thats great. But what does it have to do with religion? Nothing. People are able to distribute soup perfectly well without religion. The ingrediants, cooking skills, van etc are all available in a World without religion. So why do organised religions have to "piggy back" on to actions that good people do anyway? What does it say about the human race if we have to be motivated by an invisible sky fairy before we feed the hungry? Thank goodness, the answer is that we dont and, as religion dies around the World we quickly realise that the motivation to help those of us less fortunate comes from within.
We dont need religion to tell us what is good and bad. And its perfectly easy to imagine (and wish for) a World where religion has died but soup kitchens thrive.
Christianity hasn't served us a moral conscience, it has hijacked morality, monopolised it and spread it like a virus. What we've seen happen after WWII, especially in the more civilised parts of the world, is that people began to split their moral awareness off from any christian roots. The monsters we'd all become, according to christian dogma, for no longer following jesus around all the time, we haven't become at all. Instead, we've become more respectful towards women, gay people, ... People create their own moral awareness without the harsh judgemental doctrines of the church dictating what is right or wrong.
My grandma used to tell me stories about how priests preached in church that it was a sin to vote for socialist or liberal parties during the upcoming elections, that only the christian party should be given a vote. In fact, a popular liberal newspaper in my country was even preached against for being foul and spreading false news and for being sinful overall. A shining example of christianity telling us what's right and what's wrong. Naturally gay people were sick, they were sinners, to be healed and cured through prayer. Children who weren't baptised were shunned even from certain schools; the basic right that everyone on this planet has, to be educated, was denied to those whose parents had made the simple choice of not submersing the child in "holy water". That is a criminal offence. And when I was in school, an autistic child wasn't allowed by our town's priest to receive the "body of christ" in church because he didn't understand what it meant and therefore didn't deserve the blessings of the holy father. The child's parents, until then true believers, were so upset, and rightfully so, that they immediately chose apostasy, the both of them. They wanted nothing to do with such a judgemental place ever again. When I talk to these people today--they're good friends of my parents--they tell me how glad they are to have severed all ties with the church and with faith. Life, to them, is easier now, clearer and somehow more open-minded. They themselves have become less judgemental, they concede, now that they no longer belong to the church. Though they used to think wrong of two lesbians raising a child, a clear catholic sin, they are now perfectly okay with it, provided the child is raised, as it should be in all families, by people who love it.
If the church as an institute draws its morality from the bible, then the bible isn't even good enough to wipe my arse clean with. I don't want the stink and stains of so much cruelty and judgement rubbed off on my anus.
Everyone should try atheism sometime. It's like living a life without cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine. Everything will become clearer, simpler and much less hateful.
Recognized: a significant percentage of scientists believe in religion. It's not a tiny anomaly, it's not most scientists, it can be called declining in recent years, but it's there. It's not uncommon thought, and it includes many fine and smart people.
Soup kitchen. Whatever group gets together and organizes a soup kitchen, they should probably call it what they wish and it's likely best to declare its true source. That shouldn't be automatically objectionable just because religion is perpetrating a social good act.
Less hateful would be a good idea.
Religion does not perpetrate a social good. People perpetrate social goods. If we have to rely on their motivation coming from religion rather their own "moral compass" then we are in trouble. Why does religion make people "more good". The threat of hell? The carrot of heaven? It does not make sense. Humans dont need these carrot and sticks. They are capable of doing great things on their own.
The Daily Bread Food bank soup kitchen was run out of Daily Bread Food bank facility.
The designations are simple to understand, I think.
As for the rest of post.Unlike yourself, I don't much care who runs soup kitchens or what they are called.
Our Network was comprised of 9 Church facilities, both prod & RC, and one non-Church facility, the Daily Bread Food Bank.
Just the way it played out.
Downtown churches tend to do soup kitchens.
They have the facilities, the manpower, and invite others from the community to participate as well which they do. This is a good thing.
The more soup kitchens the better. These men appreciate the hand up
The answer to your question is simply why wouldn't they be? You seem to be under some mistaken impression that only an atheist can do science. That doesn't hold up to any objective rational scrutiny.
To echo @patb yes atheists can do soup kitchens too.
All men have capacity for charitable acts.
Not only Christians, but I think that should be obvious to anyone.
And @DarthDimi is not hateful: he's very accurate. The Bible has little concern with moral: the "good book" is all about blind obedience and worship.
So, re the Catholic Church, how can one attempt to form a balanced view without considereing the institutional cover up of child abuse?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/06/4444-victims-extent-of-abuse-in-catholic-church-in-australia-revealed
How many bowls of soup does the Ozzy RC church have to give out before its back "in the black" re how much good it's done? If you are a victim, I would suggest there will never be enough soup.
And just to show I am not picking on RC, I would say exactly the same re the Church of England.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/22/church-of-england-colluded-with-bishop-peter-ball-who-abused-boys-says-justin-welby
Do me a favour.
Yeah a big round of applause people for the Catholic Church for dipping into their vaults and finding a few tins of Heinz Big Soup behind all the Nazi gold and stolen Rembrandts to dish out to the needy.
How many billions are they sitting on that could improve the lives of their flock? A more odious organisation than even FIFA.
I'm not hateful, sir. At least not towards people. I am very much hateful towards the many evils in this world, such as terrorism, organised religion, warmongering, ...
Anyway, yes there is no scientific proof of God's existence. That should be enough right there, but I'll go a little further.
I don't mean to be condescending, but how could there be scientific proof of God's existence?
ie the transcendent realm, the spiritual, is not available to unaided reason. Reason, science cannot approach something outside it's bounds.
Knowledge, understanding of God, spiritual matters is acquired via spiritual exercises.
The biblical passage is apt
Seek and ye shall find.
But if you don't care, you won't seek.
It really is that simple. It doesn't make you a bad person.
We tend to understand what actually interests us.
I've read plenty of Hitchens, but I prefer the more enlightened musings of the younger brother, who is very charitable towards his departed older brothers scribblings, despite rejecting them.
To wit, Chris tried to chasten the new testament teaching, to Love Your Enemy, as some sort of passivist wimp-out.
Fine, except that he had no actual understanding of what that bit actually means, of how it is actually interpreted.
And this is because he made no discernable effort to know, which is because he has no actual interest in such matters.
I could explain to him in maybe 90 seconds, or two-three short paragraphs, if he were still alive.
But he could also make his own enquiries, that is if he were actually interested in the answers.
Almost a holier-than-thou sort of thing. A pre-judging. And a sense of entitlement, a sort of license to be offensive because religion is an acceptable target.
If your God can exists in this area, then so can anyone elses God (many claim to be the only God). or, for that matter, any other crackpot idea that is not a scientific claim but a spiritual/transcendent/metaphysical claim.
And you have to accept that all of these exist as there is no requirement for scientific proof. (inc Elvis being alive)
Re a licence to be offensive, it comes with the territory. Feel free to offend me as much as you like. I embrace it , its healthy. Darwin offended a few people, should he have kept quiet?
It's a never ending and impossible debate to answer.
However it's refreshing that this thread has at least remained civil.
Actually, science can walk hand in hand with religion.
And you're right, we shouldn't dictate each other what to believe or think. We never should. And many religious people, throughout the centuries, have lived by that very same rule. And some haven't. The latter--and I'm even willing to show my good intentions and say "the latter few"--have sadly revealed a dark and ugly side to wanting to impose their beliefs on others. Tragedies have almost always ensued and though they too could be considered isolated incidents, at least with a little bit of good will, when you think about them, you most certainly won't be dripping with cheer and joy. I'm talking about witch trials, crusades, cases of domestic violence we'll never even know of, 9/11, ISIS, ... And I will concede that mistakes are made without religion too. Of course, and most likely even more than with religious motives. Innocent people convicted and locked up because of their skin colour, domestic violence that has absolutely nothing to do with one's convictions, political and imperial forms of terrorism, ... The evils in this world won't disappear overnight simply by removing religion, and many of the evils I refer too are, luckily, for the most part locked away in the past.
But @patb, @Ludovico, @TheWizardOfIce and @myself share concerns which aren't false. Many people still believe today, and not because they actually do but because they were either told to do and/or because they want to do. The argument that science and religion aren't mutually exclusive is, at least in my opinion, wrong in the sense that such a belief imposed by a figure of authority or by a personal longing for the supernatural is the antithesis of how science works. As long as I can't conduct experiments to verify a certain claim, I won't yet accept the claim. Of course not everything can be experimentally verified or falsified. I love my girlfriend, deeply. Regardless of the fact that biochemistry is coming very close to making love quantifiable, I'll accept my "feeling" as such without expressing it in a formula or a graph. Don't think my girl would appreciate that anyway. ;-) So yes, when people say they believe in god and it's just a feeling but it gives them comfort and such, by all means, go with it.
The reason I, and again, this is just me, I'm not speaking for others--but the reason I have an issue with organised religions, is that it has far less innocent aspects to it than merely that beautiful and heart-warming feeling. Think about the many--yes, many--American schools where creationists expect evolutionary biology to be removed from the curriculum and to be replaced with false--and this science can conclusively prove--data about for instance the age of the Earth and the origin of our species. That is a problem, for when waterproof facts are available, the last thing you want is for people to refute those simply because they want to believe something else. That means they are directly impeding on the progress we as a species need to make in order to survive. Think also about the people who inject others with hatred towards people of a "sinful" sexual persuasion. In a world as unstable as ours, we surely don't want the armies of darkness, convinced they have the approval of the "big architect" on their side, marching in and burning down buildings, slaughtering people because they are unbelievers, infidels, cartoonists...
You know what, I've said all this before. So now allow me please to make a personal, unscientific and if you like irrational statement. Here's my biggest issue with it. By now, thousands of historians, theologians, archaeologists, psychologists, ... have academically and in no uncertain terms explained where the belief in supreme beings comes from, where our desire for such a belief comes from, how inherent it is to our emotional-over-rational way of thinking... Thousands of logicians, astronomers, physicists, biologists have meanwhile demonstrated that almost all the premises typically attached with the belief in a supreme being are false, making the existence of such a being highly unlikely. All you have to do is be honest with yourself to see, with more clarity, the reasons behind your desire to believe and the fallacies of such a belief. Furthermore, if you're worried that you may lose spiritual guidance or comfort or moral inspiration when you've given up religion, don't be. The likes of @Creasy47, @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7, @patb, @Ludovico, @TheWizardOfIce and @myself, we find solace too, we find comfort too, even spirituality if we must, but we don't need to invoke a supreme being for those purposes. The universe works, and it works fine without a human-like god.
Will the matter ever be settled? Recently it was stated that if our brain capacity were to increase and if we were x % smarter than we are today--and please forgive me, I'm tired and I'm not going to look up the article but I will tomorrow if I must--religion would most likely disappear. In all honestly, I've only caught the abstract, haven't read the whole thing yet, don't know how reliable it is. It sounds like a highly speculative thing to say anyway but maybe there's some evidence to support it. Who knows. Point is, I'm still not convinced the matter will ever be settled. Even if we wiped religion from our memory overnight, it might spontaneously resurface because we're inclined, as humans, to think outside the box and part of that is to allow the possibility of something that transcends our physical reality. Still, I believe--and you may call me out on that--but I indeed believe that like our inclination towards violence, like our capacity to kill fellow men, to cheat and lie and trick and bully, like our insatiable hunger for possessions and wealth and riches as if those things are directly proportional to happiness, the desire to believe is a weakness of ours, which, granted, could be far more innocent than those other things, were it not that reality has shown us, very often in fact, it really isn't. And if I have any opinion at all, it is that whatever the benefits it may have, it is my duty to continue to give religions at least a hard time, to continue to put pressure on them and make them contemplate and critically evaluate things. That's how we do it in science and that's how we make the rapid progress we make.
Now, I hope I've come off as polite and patient with this post, showing I need not resort to hatred or whatever, because it's time for me to crawl under some sheets now and I have no desire to do so with an increased blood pressure. ;-) Goodnight, all.
Yes, but they were trading in the temple. Also, I don't believe that he beat anyone up, just overturned their tables.
In John it is said that Jesus made a whip of cords, I don't think it was to scratch his own back. Even if he "only" overturned the tables that's not bullying? All ethical considerations aside they were doing a legal trade.
Regarding what was said about on the rather elusive nature of God, I will repeat my question: if only the "seeker" (a vague expression at best) and the believer can perceive him what's the difference between a God who exists and one who doesn't? And that's even before we can talk of his intentions towards us mere mortals or his morality if any. Which would be assessed according to its intrinsic value, not the existence of the being who expresses it, whether this being is the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Dionysus or Odin.
This is what I have a problem with. The notion that religion and science are somehow on a par with each other. In the cartoon above two people have come to the same conclusion, however one has reached the solution through experimentation, reason, taking advantage of 2000 years of technological advancement and the other by reading a book that hasn't been revised since cutting edge tech consisted of a paved road. But we are told to respect both methods as being equally valid?
I'm quite happy for anyone to believe whatever they want in the privacy of their own home - I've no doubt that there are people out there who think DAD is the best Bond film ever made. I don't think they should be executed (although forced conversion might be an idea) even though they are clearly utterly deluded - but for them to be granted a public forum and privileged status such as exemption from tax is utterly unacceptable in this day and age.
As @patb says above it is the fact that religion is allowed to stand on this pedestal where it has a more privileged status above other crackpot theories. Given the one thing we all agree on is that it's impossible to prove the existence of the supernatural can someone tell me why society doesn't extend the same rights to Jedis as it does to Christians and Muslims?
Why is the existence of a God a more credible explanation for the mysteries of the universe than the Force? How can anyone say for sure that George Lucas isn't a prophet bringing us the good news?
All religion has in its corner over Jedism is the fact that it has been going longer but longevity doesn't make it an any more credible. The Last Of The Summer Wine ran for 30 years Fawlty Towers for two series but one was genius and one was bollocks (and to be fair Jedism may pre date the big faiths as all we know is it was around 'a long time ago'. Who knows if this is longer than 2000 years?)
Ridicule a Jedi and no one will bat an eyelid but ridicule one of the big religions and you run the gauntlet of everything from losing your job to having your house burned down and being decapitated.
Still sounds like a pretty classic protection racket. Do what God says or he sends his enforcer, Jesus, round to smash up your shop. And we're supposed to have reverence for this act of petty vandalism just as we are God's genocides in Sodom and Gomorrah and the great flood that only Noah escaped? The guy is Ronnie Kray and if humanity doesn't toe the line they end up like Jack the Hat.
And why does he even do all this anyway? You set up all the rules mate and gave us free will not to believe in you so why do you then have a strop when we choose other things over going to church? If it gives you the arseache so much why not just magically change us all into a load of slavish believers if that's what you really want? Has no one told you you're omnipotent FFS?
It's embarrassing how inane the whole thing is when you look at it:
God - 'There are loads out there who don't believe in me. I know I'll send myself down as one of them and then kill myself and then rise from the dead. And I'll only do this once and rely on them to pass it on through word of mouth for the next 2000 years. That should get them all believing.'
The Holy Spirit - 'Why don't you just change the coding in their heads? I said from the start you should have put more emphasis on the believing in you stuff and less on the loving money and shagging stuff given it offends you so much. It's an easy patch then they will all go to church and follow the Ten Commandments and you won't need to keep hitting them with your wrath.'
Also, via pure legacy rather than anything else, organised religion still has a place/status within the power structures that it simply does not deserve and this needs to be sorted also. Anything Justin Welby says gets into the media even though he is no expert on anything really usefull other than wearing big hats.
I meant a protection racket in the sense that unless you play by their rules something bad happens to you. Jesus wasnt demanding money with menaces but belief in his father with menaces.
Religion itself is basically one big racket. Follow the rules, do what we say, give us your money and you'll be alright. But go against us and you will burn.
Another ludicrous thing that has just struck me is why do they even need to threaten you with hell? What religion is peddling is eternal life, a utopia where you live in peace, all your dreams and fantasies come true, see all your dead loved ones again. That's a pretty damn good product isn't it?
Imagine if I stood on a street corner offering brand new Ferraris, Rolexes, holiday homes in Barbados and the Maldives, limitless Dom Perignon and all I asked for in return was you to just turn up at some building down the road once a week and just read from a script I gave you that you think I am the greatest person who ever lived. Wouldn't this deal be so good that I would have people queuing round the block? Why would I also need to threaten those who didn't take up my too-good-to-be-true offer that I would burn them alive?
The very fact that religion had to come up with hell to frighten people in toeing the line exposes what a hollow scam it really is.
Apparently he burned his bible aged 15 which showed promise but inexplicably he rejected atheism to convert to Christianity as an adult which I think probably means we're not the same person.
But the truth is, again we tend to know about what we are actually interested in.
We seek knowledge about that which interests us, and also at a time in life, when it interests us.
There was a time I found the reading of both Hitchens brothers Interesting. Chris, mainly to see what he was going on about, but Peter more because I found him to be both interesting, and provocative, and with a icolourful bent, like his brother.
But right now I have no actual interest in reading him. I am more interested in finishing my Young Bond book, and then finishThe Ipcress File, and then three more seasons of Baywatch DVD to watch.
I've also recently stumbled on The Americans tv series, about Soviet spies in America during the cold war.
Its these items that occupy my leisure interests right now, not religious discussions. I only stumbled into this one because one of @RichardTheBruce postings caught my scanning eye.
The point being if one wishes to acquire knowledge, experience, insight, understanding, etc of matters spiritual, one need make effort, but before that effort is expended, there would have to be some catalyst, something that might compel one to seek.
For me it was basically the same thing that caused Fleming to reflect on the disposition of souls in Dr No. I also don't believe for a second that No and Quarrel go to the same place.
I do believe there is a day of reckoning for all souls. That there is a perfect divine justice that all men are ultimately accountable to.
Christianity addresses the matter of the human soul. It perfectly addresses why the world is the way it is. Why man has a dual nature, capable of both great good and great evil, and why ultimately the good will triumph.
The Bible is God's covenant with man.
Dimi goes on about perceived injustices in the world, and where he places blame.
That's fine and I guess we should thank him for taking the time to share, however I fear there is a fundamental disconnect.
Men being seduced, corrupted by evil, is why evil can hold sway.That is at root of what Dimi laments.
Evil corrupts in direct opposition to Christ's command to Love Thy Neighbor.
Evil has a source, and that source knows what "lurks in the hearts of men' ( the Shadow)
We are all vunerable to it. It plays to our vanities.
But we also have a saved nature. Christ (God) asks us to embrace our saved nature..to love thy neighbor.
That really is the human experience in a nutshell
Christ teaches, that love of God gives one greater capacity to be an instrument of the divine will, ie to love thy neighbor, to stand up against injustice.
God asks that we make merit with our life. That we put our talents and energies to work for the greater good.Given our human nature, our dual nature, we will stumble, but unlike Spectre, which as depicted in the movie, appears almost as pure evil personified, God is infinite mercy.
As this is an actual religious thread, as opposed to discussion on the latest Islamist atrocity or ghosty experiences, I thought I would indulge some of the broad strokes without getting bogged down in minutiae
However I am under no delusion, that those of an atheist bent actually have interest.
To reflect on matters spiritual, one must first have actual interest of such matters, and one must engage spiritual exercises, and there is no point expanding on that, as that would presuppose actual interest.
So essentially I amuse myself, as others of a Christian persuasion have engaged their own spiritual enquiries.
Personally though, I don't think such threads serve much value.
We all indulge our own beliefs. There is real danger for self indulgent musings here (mea culpa) which doesn't have to be a problem per se, but when the subject matter is essentially, the meaning of life, lecturing each other can get rather dysfunctional I think, uncharitable, not to mention self absorbed.
Reminds of moderator @Luds, several years back.
He interjected into one of these threads, that was really getting out of hand. Members bashing each other.
He made some glib remark, which was quite appropos, told everyone to take a pill, and then if one must, get back to bashing each other over the head with one's superior morals and beliefs.
By putting it like that, the thread mercifully died.
Good moderating.
I think such discussions are better served in person, outside cyberworld, in the real physical world, via genuine human interaction.
Makes for a more genuine committed discussion.
Socrates for example, would not commit anything to paper. He maintained his own unique brilliance could only be communicated effectively, via his own impassioned oratory.
It was left to student Plato to transcribe and construct The Republic, whilst he and later Aristotle, laid down the foundations for all Western philosophy, including the contributions of the great Christian philosopher-theologians, Acquinas and Augustine.
If one truly has interest in such profound concepts as the nature of justice, good and evil, the subject matter, truly is the realm of both philosophy and theology, which are two sides of the same coin.
I didn't coin that phrase. I lifted it from the editor of a book I have on Philosophy and James Bond.
This series of books which cover a multitude of popular subjects from the Beatles to Bond to Buffy, are actually a ploy to get readers to read philosophy.
The essays are written by accredited PHDs and doctors of Philosophy, who weave their dissertations around themes and events found in the subject matter, resulting in heady academically sound reads.
Be forewarned.
Another good read, for those who are actually interested in matters spiritual and theological, is Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Despite the rather heady title, it's a fairly breezy read, as Chesterton was a journalist, not an academic, but his writings are as well respected as any PHD's, maybe moreso as the man was quite brilliant, with a sharp wit.
Personally, I'd kill this thread as well as any heated political thread, mainly because it distracts from why we all here, and serves to unnecessarily divide. This is a unique focused community of high Bond IQ.
I honestly don't care what my fellow members believe on weighty meaning-of-life or political matters, unless I knew them in real life, and even that's a big if.
I'd be more focused on basic human interaction, what sort of beer they drink, can they tell good, jokes, good yarns, play a passable round of golf etc
As for God judging the quick and the dead... Well, even ignoring that giving infinite punishment for finite crimes that on a glimpse of cosmos' time is neither just nor moral... what makes this hypothetical God's judgment just and moral? According to the holy books he inspired he seems a petty god more interested about worship and submission than justice. Sending his son to pay for other people's "crimes" is at best morally dubious. For the sin of some ancestors that never existed in the first place (which even most Christian Churches admit nowadays) that's even more dubious. But that this redemption involves at its core worship of a being that created the rule you broke. This is arbitrary use of power if such God exists. Frankly I prefer the justice of my fellow primates. It's imperfect but at least it has a chance to be actually just and moral. And actually humanistic.
If people cant be committed and genuine on the internet, that's their an issue. Speaking for myself, I dont see how I can be more of either re what I say on these threads and in real life.
The thread title is self explanitory, if members just want to discuss Bond, then fine, dont open the thread. No one puts a gun to their head in the same way that nobody forces them to go to the libray and read books on the topic. Its slightly patronising, treating forum members as if they are not grown up enough to decide which threads to read and which to post on.
We can agree to love Bond and have different views on God.
On another topic, I have heard a million times that God loves us...but not heard one explanation as to why he felt it neccesary to create little wonders of the World such as cancer, malaria, Earthquakes, TB, etc etc What a creative, imaginary and wonderful guy he is.
Lastly, infant mortality rate in the middle ages is estimated at around 25%, Just try to imagine the total amount of pain and grief that figure brings to the species . All because God chose such a rediculous and unsafe way of producing more humans and it was left to science to figure out how to reduce the IMR to where modern societies have it down to around 3 in every 1000.
Come on mate that's basic stuff - he just does that to test your faith.
If he gives your baby leukaemia so it dies but you still worship him rather than screaming 'How can there be a God if he lets things like this happen?' then youve passed and will be rewarded in heaven (obviously bit of a bummer for the kid who never gets the option to show his devotion to God). But if you do scream 'There is no God' he sends down a tsunam to drown you as punishment.
But he loves you and is all merciful remember.
And people snigger when Islam claims to be the religion of peace? Compared to God's planet wide psychosis, ISIS look like Mother Teresa.