"There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"
Discussion
CommanderJameson said:
ChrisGB said:
I am talking from the point of view of virtue ethics - that habits form behaviour. If I watch porn every night and go find a random person who will agree to doing porn-like things with me in my "bedroom", I become a person who sees others as the means to an end, the end being my pleasure.
What's true for you isn't necessarily true for other people.Lots of people manage to have sex lives that would make your hair curl and yet, outside the bedroom, are completely normal, considerate, compassionate and empathetic members of society.
It sounds to me just like something a preacher would say to a flock. And they would shout Amen and send in the donations while he was shagging the choir.
standards said:
fluffnik said:
As for faith informing our culture I'd say it more constrains...
Would you like to prevent parents choosing how their children are educated within a varied state regulated school system? Parents seem to value that.standards said:
Avoiding the pavement cracks is something someone might do for all sorts of reasons. To me it's not the same as living your whole life in a particular way. That might be my failing.
You step on the cracks, don't you? 
standards said:
Christianity and culture. Where to start. Language-there are dozens of examples of biblical (KJV) expressions in our language from Adam's apple to the Writing on the wall. How does that contrain?
I don't deny that Christianity has given us many cultural artefacts, but it has also sought to deny us others... ChrisGB said:
I am talking from the point of view of virtue ethics - that habits form behaviour.
Quote edited for brevity, rather than "mining".And you make an assumption that without some self-appointed
"moral guardians" we all going to backslide into the mud. (No, it's not a euphemism.)
People who approach ethics from a religious point of view subscribe to the notion that without religion to "protect us", we will tend to some base version of ourselves.
Those of us of who see ourselves as decent and atheists subscribe to the notion that well adjusted human beings are inherently good. And from that it springs that good habits form good behaviour.
Does the same apply to violent computer games or rap music or movies?
I play a lot of games, I don't want to go around killing people, I see porn I don't want to repeat what I see on the screen and that is true for the vast majority of society. Yes, there have been apparent cases where media has influenced behaviour but in those cases there were bigger issues than just the media in question.
Anyway off out to find a prossie, use her, kill her and wear her skin as a coat.
I play a lot of games, I don't want to go around killing people, I see porn I don't want to repeat what I see on the screen and that is true for the vast majority of society. Yes, there have been apparent cases where media has influenced behaviour but in those cases there were bigger issues than just the media in question.
Anyway off out to find a prossie, use her, kill her and wear her skin as a coat.
standards said:
Halb said:
standards said:
Has it crossed your mind that there's the possibility that there is a difference between superstition and the Christian faith?
What's the difference?Superstition like avoiding the cracks on the pavement as opposed to a whole way of life, how to live, how to try to understand what we're here for. I think there's a difference.
And yes there might not BE a reason but believing there is a purpose to your life seems to me to be a whole different level of faith to the pavement thing.
On the other hand, someone can have faith but it have little effect on their life. They go to church for christenings, weddings and funerals, they tick CofE on the census and they pray when they're in bother, but apart from that they never give it much thought.
So the lines betwen superstition and faith can be blurred, and can't be defined by the way it informs your life. They are, to all intents and purposes the same. For most people, superstition is "faith lite".
ChrisGB said:
(The whole thing was:
Sorry, but how other people consider me affects me.
Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
If I am someone addicted to porn and tending to view others as potential objects for satisfying my lust, with their agreement hopefully, I will view people differently from the person who is very clear in their head that others are not a means to an end, or that a person is not an object, etc.
How you think of and act towards others in one particular situation (eg. the bedroom) will over time turn you into a particular sort of person who tends to do particular sorts of things. So what you do towards others will determine in some way what you do towards me.)
Sorry but how you can present this as factual is beyond me. Perhaps you think you would be affected in such a way but to presume others would be is ridiculous (and somewhat patronising).Sorry, but how other people consider me affects me.
Of course people's sex lives affect me.
We are not little islands, and how we act affects others.
If I am someone addicted to porn and tending to view others as potential objects for satisfying my lust, with their agreement hopefully, I will view people differently from the person who is very clear in their head that others are not a means to an end, or that a person is not an object, etc.
How you think of and act towards others in one particular situation (eg. the bedroom) will over time turn you into a particular sort of person who tends to do particular sorts of things. So what you do towards others will determine in some way what you do towards me.)
If meeting someone just to satisfy your lust makes you see them as objects, are you against meeting a friend somewhere purely for non sexual fun? At a theme park for instance, you meet them to go on the rollercoasters, just to have fun together, nothing else. Does this objectify them as someone you have used as means to an end, which will negatively effect how you behave towards others?
Surely you would have to apply the same standards to both scenarios? Or is it just the sex side which makes the church twitchy?
kingmoosa said:
Sorry but how you can present this as factual is beyond me. Perhaps you think you would be affected in such a way but to presume others would be is ridiculous (and somewhat patronising).
If meeting someone just to satisfy your lust makes you see them as objects, are you against meeting a friend somewhere purely for non sexual fun? At a theme park for instance, you meet them to go on the rollercoasters, just to have fun together, nothing else. Does this objectify them as someone you have used as means to an end, which will negatively effect how you behave towards others?
Surely you would have to apply the same standards to both scenarios? Or is it just the sex side which makes the church twitchy?
God creates these things, then deems them sin, for some reason. Of course this God is not just a simple God. He is a goalpost moving God of the transcendental, but isn't actually anything at all. It is a non-entity, who does stuff, somehow. This non-entity, transcendent, creator of all things, except himself, who has always been there, has an issue with you working on a Sunday. If meeting someone just to satisfy your lust makes you see them as objects, are you against meeting a friend somewhere purely for non sexual fun? At a theme park for instance, you meet them to go on the rollercoasters, just to have fun together, nothing else. Does this objectify them as someone you have used as means to an end, which will negatively effect how you behave towards others?
Surely you would have to apply the same standards to both scenarios? Or is it just the sex side which makes the church twitchy?
TheHeretic said:
God creates these things, then deems them sin, for some reason. Of course this God is not just a simple God. He is a goalpost moving God of the transcendental, but isn't actually anything at all. It is a non-entity, who does stuff, somehow. This non-entity, transcendent, creator of all things, except himself, who has always been there, has an issue with you working on a Sunday.
And therein lies the massive problem which religion (as a growing as opposed to dying thing) has. It has to be wishy washy because the minute any absolutes are stated things tend to fall apart rapidly. And the more connected and educated the general population of the world becomes, the less that wishy washy will wash...
ChrisGB said:
Just talking to myself here:
Listened to the epic Dawkins and Krauss youtube roadshow posted earlier. I think Krauss is a pretty sympathetic figure, whereas Dawkins comes across as someone literally hateful.
The interesting part really came when Krauss explains that if you have nothing, and you leave it alone for long enough, you will get a universe.
He says that philosophers he talks to assume this is some sort of scam, but he is quite clear: nothing, left alone, gives you everything, there is no scam, he repeats.
OK. Well, to simplify and probably mis-summarise from what I have managed to read and discuss with physicists in the last couple of weeks:
You basically have two mutually exclusive views of the origins in physics (bear with me!) - either some form of string theory or not. The difference will basically be whether "stuff" (I use the term loosely) like space and time are considered emergents, or not.
But uniting both approaches is the realisation of the inadequacy of everyday language for describing what is going on. There are then two options:
metaphor and/or mathematics.
Krauss will be of the mathematics camp. His "nothing" will be basically: what there is, once the constants he wants to make zero are made zero.
He is right that this is not a scam.
But he is wrong that this has any consequences whatsoever for religious belief.
His "nothing" is basically the label for a state of affairs where certain constants are "zero", others not.
It is, and he may well just not realise it, a million miles from the philosophical notion of "nothing", which I suggest is impossible to imagine.
So when I say there is a question about the universe that is unavailable to the scientific endeavour, a fundamental question that the universe raises but cannot answer i.e. viz. to wit. How come anything at all rather than nothing? I can be absolutely confident that I am talking sense. This is not a god of the gaps question, the answer to which "science" will one day have, this is the big one.
(This is not to say that theology will provide a physical explanation - creation is not a sort of making).
Why don't you email him and tell him he is wrong. He is a university professor, has published public contact details. If you manage to show that then he is likely to accept what you say and offer to retract what he said.Listened to the epic Dawkins and Krauss youtube roadshow posted earlier. I think Krauss is a pretty sympathetic figure, whereas Dawkins comes across as someone literally hateful.
The interesting part really came when Krauss explains that if you have nothing, and you leave it alone for long enough, you will get a universe.
He says that philosophers he talks to assume this is some sort of scam, but he is quite clear: nothing, left alone, gives you everything, there is no scam, he repeats.
OK. Well, to simplify and probably mis-summarise from what I have managed to read and discuss with physicists in the last couple of weeks:
You basically have two mutually exclusive views of the origins in physics (bear with me!) - either some form of string theory or not. The difference will basically be whether "stuff" (I use the term loosely) like space and time are considered emergents, or not.
But uniting both approaches is the realisation of the inadequacy of everyday language for describing what is going on. There are then two options:
metaphor and/or mathematics.
Krauss will be of the mathematics camp. His "nothing" will be basically: what there is, once the constants he wants to make zero are made zero.
He is right that this is not a scam.
But he is wrong that this has any consequences whatsoever for religious belief.
His "nothing" is basically the label for a state of affairs where certain constants are "zero", others not.
It is, and he may well just not realise it, a million miles from the philosophical notion of "nothing", which I suggest is impossible to imagine.
So when I say there is a question about the universe that is unavailable to the scientific endeavour, a fundamental question that the universe raises but cannot answer i.e. viz. to wit. How come anything at all rather than nothing? I can be absolutely confident that I am talking sense. This is not a god of the gaps question, the answer to which "science" will one day have, this is the big one.
(This is not to say that theology will provide a physical explanation - creation is not a sort of making).
However none of anything in what you've written really makes any sense to me, it's even worse waffle than usual. Especially the end part in brackets.... 'God created everything... oh wait, he didn't, he didn't make anything he only sor tof started it but not really, oh lets redefine until we find a definition that makes so little sense it cannot be challenged'.
fluffnik said:
I'd prefer education to be strictly secular and to include comparative religion as part of history...
If education is preparation for life-faith (for some) is part of life.To include the study of religion in History might preclude what's happening now because of religion
TwigtheWonderkid said:
When someone suffers from OCD, then superstition informs their whole way of life. It takes them 3 hours tom leave the house whilst they go thru their rituals.
On the other hand, someone can have faith but it have little effect on their life. They go to church for christenings, weddings and funerals, they tick CofE on the census and they pray when they're in bother, but apart from that they never give it much thought.
Which would you say was worse?On the other hand, someone can have faith but it have little effect on their life. They go to church for christenings, weddings and funerals, they tick CofE on the census and they pray when they're in bother, but apart from that they never give it much thought.
standards said:
fluffnik said:
I'd prefer education to be strictly secular and to include comparative religion as part of history...
If education is preparation for life-faith (for some) is part of life.standards said:
To include the study of religion in History might preclude what's happening now because of religion
That's the plan, there's nothing of significance good happening now because of religion and a whole heap of bad.
kingmoosa said:
If meeting someone just to satisfy your lust makes you see them as objects, are you against meeting a friend somewhere purely for non sexual fun?
Exactly.When you decouple sex from reproduction you are left with something fun to share with a friend that's less risky than skydiving.
You also get a much more considered production of children for reasons far better than being desperate for a shag...
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