Christians on PH?

[anonymous-user]

daemon said:

The beef i have with religion is the impact it has on us regular people and how its forced upon children at school.

Some good friends of mine were round earlier today with their 4 year old who is my Godson, and for some reason he mentioned Jesus (must have been doing some religious brainwashing in Nursery school or something) and his mum said "James, tell Tim (me) who Jesus was", and straight away I said to the boy "He was a fictional character, you know, not real, like in a cartoon. Dragons and Peppa Pig are also fictional characters".

His mum was briefly annoyed at me...

But I like to think I'm doing my bit in keeping kids religiously neutral until they can make up their own minds

[Steve H]

DrSteveBrule said:

I think atheists realise it's futile. When you're presenting logic, reason and evidence to people who will defiantly claim 'Because God said it/made it happen' when backed into a corner, it really is time to stop.

I'm still waiting for believers to present irrefutable evidence of the existance of a god. Any god. There were thousands to choose from through the ages; there must be a mountain of evidence.

I'm not sure all atheists do realise it's futile but I agree with the rest.

NinjaPower said:

Some good friends of mine were round earlier today with their 4 year old who is my Godson, and for some reason he mentioned Jesus (must have been doing some religious brainwashing in Nursery school or something) and his mum said "James, tell Tim (me) who Jesus was", and straight away I said to the boy "He was a fictional character, you know, not real, like in a cartoon. Dragons and Peppa Pig are also fictional characters".

Did you sleep through this part of the christening ceremony?

CofE info said:

These are the first things you’ll be asked in the christening service:-

“Will you pray for them, draw them by your example into the community of faith and walk with them in the way of Christ?”
“Will you care for them, and help them to take their place within the life and worship of Christ’s Church?”
To the questions above, the parents and godparents answer: “With the help of God we will”.

I wouldn't expect you to take your godchild to church every week but I'm not sure about agreeing to take the role on then pissing all over it.

[anonymous-user]

Steve H said:

I wouldn't expect you to take your godchild to church every week but I'm not sure about agreeing to take the role on then pissing all over it.

Both myself and the other Godparent are Atheist.

The boy's parents have known us both for a long time and know we are very much firmly Atheist. We (Both Godparents) and the parents had a discussion about it when we were asked to be a Godparent, where we made it clear that we weren't comfortable taking part in a religious ceremony and clearly lying to all present about looking after the child 'with Gods help'.

Essentially, the parents told us to stop being silly and to just grit our teeth and pretend to be religious for a few minutes, as it was 'just a few words'.

The parents made it clear they didn't expect us to change our views in any way, but they would like us to be there for the boy if anything happened to them, which I will certainly do if anything happened.

[plasticpig]

WinstonWolf said:

And if virgin is a mistranslation the whole fable becomes a bit meh. I genuinely don't understand how some seemingly intelligent people simply ignore the gaping plot holes.

So your actually questioning the virgin birth not immaculate conception? I think science has pretty much proved a virgin birth is possible. You can buy home insemination kits from the chemists these days.

[anonymous-user]

plasticpig said:

WinstonWolf said:

And if virgin is a mistranslation the whole fable becomes a bit meh. I genuinely don't understand how some seemingly intelligent people simply ignore the gaping plot holes.

So your actually questioning the virgin birth not immaculate conception? I think science has pretty much proved a virgin birth is possible. You can buy home insemination kits from the chemists these days.

Lack of gaping holes is the problem here.

Virgin in the biblical sense is a mistranslation of word meaning young woman, so the whole immaculate conception notion is based on a flasehood, but it suits the believers so they are happy to gloss over mistakes so long as they work in their favour/preference or are convenient.

Mary might have had the eggs but that still doesn't answer where the sperm came from. Unravelling that DNA would have been interesting.

I've wondered what was made of Jesus' childhood in the bible? Being the son of god and all that, was he treated any differently growing up?

[anonymous-user]

[quoteSteve H]I'm not sure all atheists do realise it's futile but I agree with the rest.[quote]

Futile in the context of this thread

[patmahe]

daemon said:

In fairness you could turn this around on any sector of society, there are idiot Atheists and idiot Christians, in other words some people are just idiots, but most people aren't. The idiots just shout loudest so it seems like theres more of them than there actually are

[WinstonWolf]

plasticpig said:

WinstonWolf said:

And if virgin is a mistranslation the whole fable becomes a bit meh. I genuinely don't understand how some seemingly intelligent people simply ignore the gaping plot holes.

So your actually questioning the virgin birth not immaculate conception? I think science has pretty much proved a virgin birth is possible. You can buy home insemination kits from the chemists these days.

I'm questioning both...

Let's say Mary *was* a virgin for just a moment, you do realise that in Christian terms she wasn't married until the marriage was consummated.

So, these home insemination kits, were they on the market around 1BC?

[plasticpig]

WinstonWolf said:

I'm questioning both...

Let's say Mary *was* a virgin for just a moment, you do realise that in Christian terms she wasn't married until the marriage was consummated.

So, these home insemination kits, were they on the market around 1BC?

I haven't heard of any archaeological evidence for them. But there again a hollow reed some fresh sperm and a bit of luck could do the job.

[WinstonWolf]

plasticpig said:

WinstonWolf said:

I'm questioning both...

Let's say Mary *was* a virgin for just a moment, you do realise that in Christian terms she wasn't married until the marriage was consummated.

So, these home insemination kits, were they on the market around 1BC?

I haven't heard of any archaeological evidence for them. But there again a hollow reed some fresh sperm and a bit of luck could do the job.

That would be a bloomin miracle...

[bigkeeko]

WinstonWolf said:

I'm questioning both...

Let's say Mary *was* a virgin for just a moment, you do realise that in Christian terms she wasn't married until the marriage was consummated.

So, these home insemination kits, were they on the market around 1BC?

WinstonWolf. I don't understand why you are questioning the miracle birth of Jesus. They were all the rage back in the day.

Romulus and Remus were born of a virgin.
In China Laozi was conceived when his mother gazed upon a falling star. He was born while his mother was leaning against a plum tree.
The virgin daughter of a Mongol king woke up in a great light that resulted in the birth of Genghis Khan.
Greek God Persius was born when the God Jupiter visited his virgin.
Hinduism, Vishnu himself descended into the womb of Devaki and was born as her son, Krishna after having conceived several times naturally.
Some say Buddha was born through an opening in his virgin mothers flank.

It's not like these facts can be misinterpreted or anything Even the Quran states Jesus was born of a virgin (and we don't argue with that) however it also says he wasn't crucified. There is no end in the way this kind of thing can be fabricated and re invented so I say let the religious types believe what they like.



What happened was Mary (if there was a Mary) tried the John Rock and had a child. To accept anything else believed 2000 years ago by the benighted of the day requires a healthy dose of short sightedness.

Edited**

Edited by bigkeeko on Monday 4th July 12:48

[WinstonWolf]

I've absolutely not got a problem with people who choose to try and live their lives 'as a better man' as a result of reading these stories, but to try and claim any of it as fact? That's when the whole thing falls apart IMO. Father Christmas is just as real as Jesus or any of his cohorts...

[CloaK]

Speaking of 'The God Delusion', I read it maybe 2 or 3 times and thought most of it was pretty good.

I'm not sure I fully understood, I think it was Chapter 4, the bit about the the 747.

I don't have the book anymore but can anyone explain what he meant?

[smn159]

Maybe a handy checklist should be drawn up for these threads.

Claims to be religious - OK but don't involve me
Claims that the Bible is literally true - Nutter / avoid
Claims to be able to talk to God - culturally acceptable if a bit odd
Claims that God talks back - Inform psychiatric services immediately. Do not approach.

and so forth..

[TwigtheWonderkid]

smn159 said:

Maybe a handy checklist should be drawn up for these threads.

Claims to be religious - OK but don't involve me
Claims that the Bible is literally true - Nutter / avoid
Claims to be able to talk to God - culturally acceptable if a bit odd
Claims that God talks back - Inform psychiatric services immediately. Do not approach.

and so forth..

Sounds a bit like evolution bingo. You have a card with all the brain dead arguments against evolution that thick wkers who don't even understand evolution always use (it's only a theory, if humans came from monkeys why are there still monkeys etc), you tick them off as the idiot uses them and then shout bingo when you have a line of moronic comments ticked off.

[anonymous-user]

CloaK said:

Speaking of 'The God Delusion', I read it maybe 2 or 3 times and thought most of it was pretty good.

I'm not sure I fully understood, I think it was Chapter 4, the bit about the the 747.

I don't have the book anymore but can anyone explain what he meant?

I've just finished reading it; I think it's referencing the creationist argument that says the chances of life 'happening' are akin to a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard and collecting together all the required pieces to form a funcational plane.

Creationist seem intent on claiming the chances of life are too great to have any other explaination other than a devine creator (never mind the question 'Who created the creator?')

Dawkins goes to great lengths to say that life doesn't rely on chance. Evolution slowly develops; nothing was instantly created. Furthermore it hasn't stopped. The humans of the future will look different to how we look today.

Creationists often claim the human eye is so complex it has to be designed. Well, no. It's far from perfect. Birds of prey have far better sight than we do. We see images upside down and the focal point is at the back of our eye, through which light has to travel through lenses and goo and rods before hitting the receptors. Our range of vision is limited in numerous ways and through the eyeball being mishapen slightly our vision can be impaired.

[anonymous-user]

WinstonWolf said:

I've absolutely not got a problem with people who choose to try and live their lives 'as a better man' as a result of reading these stories, but to try and claim any of it as fact? That's when the whole thing falls apart IMO. Father Christmas is just as real as Jesus or any of his cohorts...

+1

My dad used to be a supplier to a large local C of E church, and knew the vicar quite well. They were once talking about Christmas and the vicar said "I suppose it's a nice story isn't it" and went on to say how he believed the bible to be entirely fictional stories and he didn't believe any of it should be taken literally.

That's kind of how I feel about religion. If you want to partake in it because you enjoy it and get some sort of comfort out of it, then fair enough, but don't treat me and others like a fking idiot by insisting that it all happened, and that there is a man sat on a cloud somewhere who 'made everything'.

[SpeckledJim]

DrSteveBrule said:

CloaK said:

Speaking of 'The God Delusion', I read it maybe 2 or 3 times and thought most of it was pretty good.

I'm not sure I fully understood, I think it was Chapter 4, the bit about the the 747.

I don't have the book anymore but can anyone explain what he meant?

I've just finished reading it; I think it's referencing the creationist argument that says the chances of life 'happening' are akin to a whirlwind blowing through a junkyard and collecting together all the required pieces to form a funcational plane.

Creationist seem intent on claiming the chances of life are too great to have any other explaination other than a devine creator (never mind the question 'Who created the creator?')

Dawkins goes to great lengths to say that life doesn't rely on chance. Evolution slowly develops; nothing was instantly created. Furthermore it hasn't stopped. The humans of the future will look different to how we look today.

Creationists often claim the human eye is so complex it has to be designed. Well, no. It's far from perfect. Birds of prey have far better sight than we do. We see images upside down and the focal point is at the back of our eye, through which light has to travel through lenses and goo and rods before hitting the receptors. Our range of vision is limited in numerous ways and through the eyeball being mishapen slightly our vision can be impaired.

And examples of the many stepping stones of development and improvement through which we went to get to the eye we have today can be seen working in other species today.

So demonstrating that the 'mkI human eyeball' often referred to in the creation argument, isn't the mkI at all.

[qube_TA]

NinjaPower said:

Steve H said:

I wouldn't expect you to take your godchild to church every week but I'm not sure about agreeing to take the role on then pissing all over it.

Both myself and the other Godparent are Atheist.

The boy's parents have known us both for a long time and know we are very much firmly Atheist. We (Both Godparents) and the parents had a discussion about it when we were asked to be a Godparent, where we made it clear that we weren't comfortable taking part in a religious ceremony and clearly lying to all present about looking after the child 'with Gods help'.

Essentially, the parents told us to stop being silly and to just grit our teeth and pretend to be religious for a few minutes, as it was 'just a few words'.

The parents made it clear they didn't expect us to change our views in any way, but they would like us to be there for the boy if anything happened to them, which I will certainly do if anything happened.

I was asked to be a God Parent, but as I'm atheist I declined, to accept was a bit hypocritical and would miss understand the function of the role. I'm happy to 'be there for the children in question if ever required but I didn't want a title that didn't make sense.

[smn159]

qube_TA said:

I was asked to be a God Parent, but as I'm atheist I declined, to accept was a bit hypocritical and would miss understand the function of the role. I'm happy to 'be there for the children in question if ever required but I didn't want a title that didn't make sense.

I've done the same. Like you I'm happy to be there for the children, but I wasn't going to agree to help indoctrinate them into any religion. My daughter wasn't christened either for the same reason; if she chooses to adopt a religion later in life it's up to her, but it will be her choice and not mine.

I don't understand parents who aren't religious who want their children christened. I attended one recently and thought that it was appalling - all about how great god and Jesus are and barely a mention of the child. A shame that more people don't go for non-religious naming ceremonies.