Topic: Atheism

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Seems to be how they think.

During a recent interview with Kirk Cameron, Charlie Kirk said, "Freedom is not sustainable if you remove Christianity. Eventually, it will implode. Eventually, you will be ruled simply by your senses. You'll be ruled simply by your consciousness."

It's exactly how they think,not that they do much thinking other than how to own the Libs

[Alan_X]

Really don’t understand this. Why is there an assumption that without a god, the average good person would be in a blind panic as to what to do?

or that a supreme being responsible for the creation of the universe and billions of human beings is actively monitoring what you would do with a dropped wallet. And given that there are thousands of years where religious people have done bad things and got away with it, the whole “God creates morality” thing falls on its arse.

[Alan_X]

The opposite, actually.

Religious children are meaner than their secular counterparts, study finds

Religious belief appears to have negative influence on children’s altruism and judgments of others’ actions even as parents see them as ‘more empathetic’

Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.

Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.

They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.

“Overall, our findings ... contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology.

I wonder if there’s a sense that you’re “in with the boss” and you get a free pass as a member of the club. It’s simplistic logic on the lines of religion = morality therefore if I’m religious I’m moral (whatever I do). 

As an atheist I just have to do what’s best for the people around me and wider society. This is all I have so I’m going to make the most of it.

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

I wonder if there’s a sense that you’re “in with the boss” and you get a free pass as a member of the club. It’s simplistic logic on the lines of religion = morality therefore if I’m religious I’m moral (whatever I do). 

As an atheist I just have to do what’s best for the people around me and wider society. This is all I have so I’m going to make the most of it.

When growing up - catholic school, catholic family, church on Sunday, along with lots of similar families, I remember many examples of people doing the appearance of church every week, with the family, all dressed up etc. But as I got a bit older you'd hear stories of what some of these people had been up to. Some quite big stuff by any standard, but plenty of pettiness, hypocrisy and so on too.

By contrast we also got to know some completely non religious people who were the kindest, supportive, non-judgemental people you could ever meet. Religion has no bearing on the type of person you aspire to being. Although when you look at how religion, especially catholicism was taught, its no surprise that it gave some the feeling of religion led immunity. Turn up on Sundays and holy days and you'll be OK, we'll ignore the other stuff.

In my view, catholicism is a control mechanism, and it's also no surprise that so many have turned their back on it, again given experience from growing up amongst it.

My values have been shaped more by good people than religious people.

[Riquende]

I wonder if there’s a sense that you’re “in with the boss” and you get a free pass as a member of the club. It’s simplistic logic on the lines of religion = morality therefore if I’m religious I’m moral (whatever I do). 

Interesting point. I read a quote a little while ago, that I wish I could find again, about the political Right's thinking. It was summed up as them viewing criminals as a "criminal class" that they're obviously not part of, but a 'certain type' of person definitely is. Therefore, anything those people do should be looked at with suspicion, whilst anything they or their peers did must be justified by definition, because they aren't part of the "criminal classes".

There's a strong correlation between religiosity and Right-wing politics, so maybe it's a similar mindset? "Anyone who believes in my god must be a good person, because we're inherently good, because our god told us so. Whatever actions we take must be morally justifiable"

And of course if that stretches too far and breaks, you can resort to a No True Scotsman fallacy: "Well they can't have really been a believer anyway"

[Nobby Reserve]

Interesting point. I read a quote a little while ago, that I wish I could find again, about the political Right's thinking. It was summed up as them viewing criminals as a "criminal class" that they're obviously not part of, but a 'certain type' of person definitely is. Therefore, anything those people do should be looked at with suspicion, whilst anything they or their peers did must be justified by definition, because they aren't part of the "criminal classes".

There's a strong correlation between religiosity and Right-wing politics, so maybe it's a similar mindset? "Anyone who believes in my god must be a good person, because we're inherently good, because our god told us so. Whatever actions we take must be morally justifiable"

And of course if that stretches too far and breaks, you can resort to a No True Scotsman fallacy: "Well they can't have really been a believer anyway"

Don't the Christianists have some bollocks about believers having their sins being absolved through penitence? Or is that just the 'left-footers'?

[lobsterboy]

Really don’t understand this. Why is there an assumption that without a god, the average good person would be in a blind panic as to what to do?

Thats something that always really offends me. The insistence that I cannot have any morals or common human decency without following whatever sky fairy they do. Meanwhile they slavishly devote themselves to a deity who has murdered many, demanded sacrifices, abandoned his son and condemns those who do not accept "his love" to an eternity of suffering.
And thats just the christians...

[HomesickRed]

Baby boomers lose religious faith faster than other generations

Baby boomers are losing their religion faster than any other generation, figures show, with the proportion who believe in God dipping below 50 per cent for the first time.

Faith in God across Britain has fallen from 75 per cent in 1981 to 49 per cent in 2022, making the UK one of the least religious countries out of 24 analysed by researchers at King’s College London.

When the figures are broken down into five generations — those born before the Second World War, baby boomers born after the war, generation X, millennials and generation Z - it reveals that baby boomers are less likely than any other generation to believe in life after death, heaven and hell, scoring lower than their parents’, children’s and grandchildren’s generations.

Only those in Gen Z, born after 1997, score lower than baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, for belief in God.

In 2022, 32 per cent of baby boomers said they considered themselves to be a “religious person”, falling from 52 per cent in 2005, the steepest drop of any generation over that period.

The study has been asking Britons about their religious faith for more than 40 years.

In 1990, 66 per cent of baby boomers, or two thirds, believed in God. By 2022, this has fallen to 48 per cent, dipping below half for the first time.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said that baby boomers had lived through “lots of social and cultural revolutions”, adding: “[We see] more of that effect on the baby boomers as their formative years were shaped much more by the … speed of cultural change that we had in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.”

He said that baby boomers are entering “later stages of life [where] you start to think more seriously about where you are” on questions of spirituality and mortality.

The pre-war generation is most likely to believe in God, but this too has fallen, from 82 per cent in 1981 to 59 per cent in 2022.

Among baby boomers, belief in hell is at 18 per cent, heaven at 34 per cent, and life after death at 35 per cent, each lower than any other generation.

All generations were less likely to consider themselves a religious person in 2022 compared with 2005, with millennials and Gen Z least likely, both at 27 per cent, followed by baby boomers at 32 per cent.

When asked about belief in God, baby boomers scored the same as millennials, born between 1981 and 1996. Millennials’ belief in God appears to be on the rise, however, having increased from 38 per cent in 2018 to 48 per cent in 2022, an opposite trend to that seen in baby boomers. It is thought that there is more religious diversity among millennials, with religious faith generally stronger among young people from non-Christian backgrounds.

Duffy said he expected the figures for millennials to plateau rather than continue to increase in future surveys.



Hard to question the facts to be honest. All the non-believers are dying. The believers are dying too.

No reports of any being saved either!

Importantly, no attempt to tell us those religions that ARE growing because in a generation Christianity will be trailing in the distance behind, for instance, Islam as a practiced religion in the UK. Sports washing and other initiatives will also have had years of great success in winning over the wealthier, decision making classes -- with real consequences.

The atheist in me worries about what will replace the void caused by Christianity's decline in the West.

[thejbs]

Baby boomers lose religious faith faster than other generations.

The atheist in me worries about what will replace the void caused by Christianity's decline in the West.

Get yourself over to the aliens/ufo thread for a sneak peek of what’s coming… according to yougov, only 30% of people in the uk don’t believe in aliens. I suppose the good thing is that ufologists don’t dictate their reproductive beliefs to women.

[Iska]

Importantly, no attempt to tell us those religions that ARE growing because in a generation Christianity will be trailing in the distance behind, for instance, Islam as a practiced religion in the UK. Sports washing and other initiatives will also have had years of great success in winning over the wealthier, decision making classes -- with real consequences.

The atheist in me worries about what will replace the void caused by Christianity's decline in the West.

Yes, this is a lot of what I worry about, obviously from a different perspective. It’s like we’ve had a couple of millennia of our societies operating from a set of shared moral assumptions, then have decided for the past fifty years or so to try operating with no shared assumptions, and it’s starting to drive people mad.

I wouldn’t get too apocalyptic about it yet, most people do still operate from largely those shared assumptions (even if they think they’re atheists) because they’re so baked in to our society.  But it’s definitely on the radar - the more they get loosened, the more people and institutions start to fall through the cracks; the worry is that at some point a critical mass falls through and things start to get totally unmoored.

I’m still fairly optimistic because the west has almost always selfcorrected—eventually—once things start spinning out of hand.  As for what’s likely to happen, I’d say a Christian revival is most likely because as I say those are the fundamental assumptions, what’s needed is to keep them at the heart of national life.  The threats to them are from relativism or unbounded rationalism imo, rather than from islam.  For one thing it isn’t growing as fast as you’d think as most migration isn’t from muslim countries, and secondly because the mainstream Islam in this country seems to be mutating into something mild like another Christian sect, rather than the fundamentalist way-of-life creed that would be the actual sort of threat that you seem to have in mind.  I’m just trying to spot a trend obviously.

As for woke, I tend to think about that as a type of protestantism that’s gone haywire on the meek/‘turn the other cheek’ aspect of Christianity, and by rejecting all the more muscular/self-protective parts of the Christian system is incredibly vulnerable to being taken over by all sorts of nonsense.  That’s more of a threat imo because it’s managed to make great strides in institutionalising an (imo) childish belief system into public life.

So I’d say that if you worry about what will replace the void, I’d say it’s that people just start believing in anything and so we get a lot of cults of which things like extreme environmentalism, anti-natalism, white supremacy, trans, conspiracy theory might be current examples.  The risk obviously is of one of those eventually getting enough critical mass to take over, and it might well be something that’s far far worse.  That’s happened before.

[Kenny's Jacket]

The atheist in me worries about what will replace the void caused by Christianity's decline in the West.

The optimistic atheist in me is excited at the death of Christianity not just in the UK, but everywhere

It might get replaced by the thirst for progressive and woke policies.
Look at the Western "land of the free" a shithole full of Christians
An unemployed woman gets an unwanted pregnancy, her choices are;
criminalise herself and put herself in danger with an illegal s abortion,
pay $xx,xxx amount on an unwanted labour
do nothing and put her own life and the babies in danger with no medical intervention

[So… Howard Philips]

The optimistic atheist in me is excited at the death of Christianity not just in the UK, but everywhere

It might get replaced by the thirst for progressive and woke policies.
Look at the Western "land of the free" a shithole full of Christians
An unemployed woman gets an unwanted pregnancy, her choices are;
criminalise herself and put herself in danger with an illegal s abortion,
pay $xx,xxx amount on an unwanted labour
do nothing and put her own life and the babies in danger with no medical intervention

And would that hypothetical woman’s chances be any better in any Islamic country?

Her chances are certainly better in in any Western European country, which are still nominally Christian. Despite opposition from established Christian churches.

[Kenny's Jacket]

And would that hypothetical woman’s chances be any better in any Islamic country?

Her chances are certainly better in in any Western European country, which are still nominally Christian. Despite opposition from established Christian churches.

but whatabout the muslims?

The report was about the decline of religion in the west so Islam wasnt relevant to the post I was replying to.
However she would definitey be better off in Malaysia where childbirth is free and abortion is permited n certain circumstances  like preserving the mothers mental health.
A very quick bit of research tells me abortion laws in Pakistan and Indonesia are more liberal than they are in Texas.

Many Islamic countries offer free healthcare for pregnancies

If we are looking at the most draconoian non western countries for abortion and access to free healthcare, Phillippines would be quite high, bloody christians eh.






 

[Yorkykopite]

but whatabout the muslims?

The report was about the decline of religion in the west so Islam wasnt relevant to the post I was replying to.
However she would definitey be better off in Malaysia where childbirth is free and abortion is permited n certain circumstances  like preserving the mothers mental health.
A very quick bit of research tells me abortion laws in Pakistan and Indonesia are more liberal than they are in Texas.

Many Islamic countries offer free healthcare for pregnancies

If we are looking at the most draconoian non western countries for abortion and access to free healthcare, Phillippines would be quite high, bloody christians eh.

I don't think Islamic countries are exactly a beacon for women's rights. To put it politely.

Someone asked what would fill the void if Christianity disappeared. But Christianity is the void. As is Islam and all organised religion. What will replace it? What is already replacing it. A respect for human rights, toleration, greater kindness, less crime.

[Kenny's Jacket]

Someone asked what would fill the void if Christianity disappeared. But Christianity is the void. As is Islam and all organised religion.
What will replace it? What is already replacing it. A respect for human rights, toleration, greater kindness, less crime

Which is basically what I said in my very first sentence.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

but whatabout the muslims?

If we are looking at the most draconoian non western countries for abortion and access to free healthcare, Phillippines would be quite high, bloody christians eh.

Not if the husband finds out & says no.

[Corkboy]

Survey: In the U.K., belief in God has finally dipped below 50%

Fewer than half the people in the United Kingdom (49%) still believe in God, a stunning drop from the 75% who believed in 1981, according to new data from the World Values Survey, an international study conducted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London.

Even fewer believe in an afterlife, Heaven, and Hell.



This tracks with what we’ve already seen from previous studies, but it’s still a shock to see how much disregard people in the UK have for organized religion and the beliefs associated with it. The same survey also found that 72% of people in the UK didn’t want religious authorities interpreting laws and 82% trusted people who didn’t share their faith—both numbers you hope to see in a pluralistic democracy.

It’s not like the future looks bright for organized religion either. Only 37% of UK’s Gen Z believes in God. (Compare that to 1981, when 82% of the “Pre-War generation” said they believed.)



As it stands, the UK now ranks among the least religious countries among the 24 included in this wave of research. Only 33% of citizens describe themselves as religious while 21% would say they’re atheists. (In the U.S., those numbers are 58% and 8%, respectively.)

[Riquende]

It’s not like the future looks bright for organized religion either. Only 37% of UK’s Gen Z believes in God. (Compare that to 1981, when 82% of the “Pre-War generation” said they believed.)

But Iska insists there's a huge Christian revival happening any day now! How to square this data with that?

Seriously though, for a country that is technically a theocratic monarchy with a state religion, in which church leaders have political influence, we're doing quite well for ourselves on this regard (and probably gives us a fighting chance fending off that 'National Conservatism' which leans heavily into US-style religious nuttery). Just a shame that politically we're in such a shambles, but hopefully the Tories getting the boot ushers in some sense in government.

[Iska]

You shouldn’t let me get under your skin like that, you really look weak.

Interesting to note both Millennials and Gen X ticking up there though, is it not?  Also everything’s ticking up in that first chart.  I still reckon you’re going to get a big surprise in a few years’ time.

[Riquende]

You shouldn’t let me get under your skin like that, you really look weak.

I'm not particularly concerned about what I look like to you, a confirmed coward who suddenly refuses to answer questions and disappears from threads when backed into a corner over their latest nonsensical gibbering.

Your 'prediction' of an imagined religious future just happens to be the only thing of interest you've ever posted, mainly for comedic value, which makes it all the more memorable.

[Nobby Reserve]

I still reckon you’re going to get a big surprise in a few years’ time.

[Iska]

A confirmed coward?!  That's a bit out-of-line, especially coming from a guy who doesn't seem to have the guts to hold a dissenting opinion about anything.

[Riquende]

A confirmed coward?!  That's a bit out-of-line, especially coming from a guy who doesn't seem to have the guts to hold a dissenting opinion about anything.

No, it's an exact description of your behaviour when your views and opinions are questioned, in threads like this one or similar. Seen it many times now. You suddenly realise that you'll be exposed by an honest answer so refuse to answer questions before disappearing entirely for a bit. Quite frankly it's a boring act, so I prefer not engaging with yourself now as the discussion goes nowhere. I'm getting older and don't have time to waste on people unable to debate in good faith. I'm sure most of the other posters who'll engage with this thread have seen it themselves and also know exactly what to expect from you.

[Iska]

Good idea, sounds like everyone wins that way.

[So… Howard Philips]

A bit of light(ish) relief.

The money was only ‘resting’ in my account;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65876162

[liverbloke]

Good idea, sounds like everyone wins that way.

sorry if this has been covered already in this thread (i can't be bothered searching through) but why do you believe iska?

is it because you were brought up in a family that held those beliefs?

is it because you were born in a country that has a particular faith?

did you find your faith yourself and if so why were you looking?

or did you decide to follow your faith without influence or fear?

and why choose that particular faith as there are many other faiths who believe they have the answers?

[Iska]

It hasn’t but that’s a difficult question and I’m not going to do it justice or be able to come up with anything satisfying I don’t think. It’s the sort of thing you spend a lifetime wondering and worrying about. There isn’t a bigger subject. Because it makes more sense than not believing is I suppose the best answer. Because it gets at the truth better than anything else. But it’s a bit like asking why are you you, it just raises so many other questions, you’d have to do a hell of a lot of thinking first to work out what the question is and try to answer it properly. You can rationalise parts of it, but at the end of the day it’s because you just are.

Sorry, that won’t be much use and we might well even be at cross-purposes, and you’ll get nothing inspiring from me. But you asked so I made the effort and it’s probably the best I can do.

[Nobby Reserve]

A bit of light(ish) relief.

The money was only ‘resting’ in my account;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65876162

Not really light relief.

Just a different form of the ethnic cleansing of Israel/Palestine that's been ongoing since 1948.

[So… Howard Philips]

Not really light relief.

Just a different form of the ethnic cleansing of Israel/Palestine that's been ongoing since 1948.

It was more the Armenian Father Ted I was referencing and I did give a caveat based on the increasingly virulent spat above.

[thejbs]

It hasn’t but that’s a difficult question and I’m not going to do it justice or be able to come up with anything satisfying I don’t think. It’s the sort of thing you spend a lifetime wondering and worrying about. There isn’t a bigger subject. Because it makes more sense than not believing is I suppose the best answer. Because it gets at the truth better than anything else. But it’s a bit like asking why are you you, it just raises so many other questions, you’d have to do a hell of a lot of thinking first to work out what the question is and try to answer it properly. You can rationalise parts of it, but at the end of the day it’s because you just are.

Sorry, that won’t be much use and we might well even be at cross-purposes, and you’ll get nothing inspiring from me. But you asked so I made the effort and it’s probably the best I can do.

That’s genuinely interesting and not an opinion I’ve heard often, if at all. I hold the opposite to be true. It certainly makes more rational sense to lack belief in deities.

[Jiminy Cricket]

That’s genuinely interesting and not an opinion I’ve heard often, if at all. I hold the opposite to be true. It certainly makes more rational sense to lack belief in deities.

My interpretation of Iska's comments is that he needs 'answers' or 'certainty' and that his belief in the existence of God provides these for him. Of course, to you am me, those explanations for the existence of the universe and humans are baseless and actually mean nothing. I simply accept that we do not have all the answers and that the answers to some questions are unknowable. Is it fear of mortality which drives belief in God for many people?

[thejbs]

It's also interesting to say it gets to the truth better than anything else.  What truth? The moral truth? Religion is often found lacking in that regard. The scientific truth? It's anti-science and the bible, for example, has many basic scientific errors.

[Yorkykopite]

A bit of light(ish) relief.

The money was only ‘resting’ in my account;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65876162

the Armenian Father Ted I was referencing and I did give a caveat based on the increasingly virulent spat above.

 

I seem to remember a few years back the various church elders who each 'own' parts of the church of the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem having a mass brawl. It was probably about money or who had the keys to the church (ie money). I'd have paid good money myself to watch the ensuing fracas.

[So… Howard Philips]

the Armenian Father Ted I was referencing and I did give a caveat based on the increasingly virulent spat above.


 

I seem to remember a few years back the various church elders who each 'own' parts of the church of the holy sepulchre in Jerusalem having a mass brawl. It was probably about money or who had the keys to the church (ie money). I'd have paid good money myself to watch the ensuing fracas.

I think various Orthodox sects have turns in raising their chasubles to the monstrance whilst agitating the thurible.

Just imagine when it’s the turn of the Ukrainian Orthdox Patriarch and the Russian one jumps in!

[Iska]

My interpretation of Iska's comments is that he needs 'answers' or 'certainty' and that his belief in the existence of God provides these for him. Of course, to you am me, those explanations for the existence of the universe and humans are baseless and actually mean nothing. I simply accept that we do not have all the answers and that the answers to some questions are unknowable. Is it fear of mortality which drives belief in God for many people?

It's also interesting to say it gets to the truth better than anything else.  What truth? The moral truth? Religion is often found lacking in that regard. The scientific truth? It's anti-science and the bible, for example, has many basic scientific errors.

We’re all looking for answers aren’t we?  These two responses were interesting. Where I think they’re coming from is that, consciously or otherwise, both of you are committed to the post-modernist idea that there’s no guiding system, no grand narrative, nothing need be connected to anything else.

We’ve tried that idea and it hasn’t worked. It’s made us stupid, we imagine that it’s possible to treat issues as points-in-isolation to be decided one-by-one on a rational basis with no prejudices.  But take something like whether rapists should be in women’s prisons. The answer is obvious, right? Apparently not, apparently it’s a complicated issue to be addressed by empirical data, risk assessments, taking into account approved stakeholders, etc. And then they arrived at the answer yes, rapists can be in women’s prisons.

I don’t believe we can function like that, either as a society or in the end as individuals. I’ve seen too many people completely lost, not knowing what or how to think. And so that’s one of the things I was getting at when I said that believing makes more sense than not believing.

But you also asked ‘what truth?’. That presupposes that the idea can broken down, and I’m increasingly of the view that it can’t. You, to be a functional entity, have to approach life from one perspective so you have to be able to reconcile all of what you see as different truths into one code for yourself. Christianity has built a colossal body to do just that, over 2,000+ years, and there’s no separate alternative code that remotely compares. Indeed any other code barely tries to - I asked this question a few pages back:

Imagine you find a wallet on a deserted street with £100 in it. There is no god. What should you do?

but nobody actually answered it except Alan X, and he wasn’t even responding to me (“As an atheist I just have to do what’s best for the people around me and wider society. This is all I have so I’m going to make the most of it.”). Everyone else answered as if I’d asked what would you do, or got offended because they read it as an implication that they couldn’t possibly know, or had no moral standards. I didn’t see anyone else approaching the idea of what holds it all together if there’s no god - but that’s to fall into the first temptation of postmodernism, that you can solve one question in isolation and everything else will stay just as it was. No — change one thing or pick one thing, and everything else changes, only it takes time. As a society we’re now some way past the first stage and it plainly isn’t working, and you can see that in the rapists question a few ideas have been isolated - be kind to people, everyone is worthy of respect, etc - and it’s wrecked the ability to think about it properly because there’s no code, no system, no idea that everything should make one sense.

It’s indicative of what I’m saying above, and why (again) we never get anywhere on this thread. We’re always talking about different things. You ask about belief and imagine it’s a simple question like ‘is there a magic man in the sky?’. But that’s to miss the point, there’s an entire city to explore and you can’t do that by looking only at a single brick.

[Kenny's Jacket]

We’re all looking for answers aren’t we?  These two responses were interesting. Where I think they’re coming from is that, consciously or otherwise, both of you are committed to the post-modernist idea that there’s no guiding system, no grand *





6narrative, nothing need be connected to anything else.

We’ve tried that idea and it hasn’t worked. It’s made us stupid, we imagine that it’s possible to treat issues as points-in-isolation to be decided one-by-one on a rational basis with no prejudices.  But take something like whether rapists should be in women’s prisons. The answer is obvious, right? Apparently not, apparently it’s a complicated issue to be addressed by empirical data, risk assessments, taking into account approved stakeholders, etc. And then they arrived at the answer yes, rapists can be in women’s prisons.

I don’t believe we can function like that, either as a society or in the end as individuals. I’ve seen too many people completely lost, not knowing what or how to think. And so that’s one of the things I was getting at when I said that believing makes more sense than not believing.

But you also asked ‘what truth?’. That presupposes that the idea can broken down, and I’m increasingly of the view that it can’t. You, to be a functional entity, have to approach life from one perspective so you have to be able to reconcile all of what you see as different truths into one code for yourself. Christianity has built a colossal body to do just that, over 2,000+ years, and there’s no separate alternative code that remotely compares. Indeed any other code barely tries to - I asked this question a few pages back:but nobody actually answered it except Alan X, and he wasn’t even responding to me (“As an atheist I just have to do what’s best for the people around me and wider society. This is all I have so I’m going to make the most of it.”). Everyone else answered as if I’d asked what would you do, or got offended because they read it as an implication that they couldn’t possibly know, or had no moral standards. I didn’t see anyone else approaching the idea of what holds it all together if there’s no god - but that’s to fall into the first temptation of postmodernism, that you can solve one question in isolation and everything else will stay just as it was. No — change one thing or pick one thing, and everything else changes, only it takes time. As a society we’re now some way past the first stage and it plainly isn’t working, and you can see that in the rapists question a few ideas have been isolated - be kind to people, everyone is worthy of respect, etc - and it’s wrecked the ability to think about it properly because there’s no code, no system, no idea that everything should make one sense.

It’s indicative of what I’m saying above, and why (again) we never get anywhere on this thread. We’re always talking about different things. You ask about belief and imagine it’s a simple question like ‘is there a magic man in the sky?’. But that’s to miss the point, there’s an entire city to explore and you can’t do that by looking only at a single brick.

What does God think about Rapists in womens prisons?
Why did God create rapists ?
Where does God or Iska think we should put rapists?

[Yorkykopite]

I struggled to make sense of that. Not morally or intellectually, but literally. Many defences of religion are like this I think. Rambling, vague sentences of indeterminate meaning, containing strange metaphors and epigrams that seem heavy with wisdom but collapse into nothingness ("an entire city to explore...looking at a single brick").

It's also not true that only one person answered your question. In fact several people did, myself included. Those who didn't may have found the answer to be too obvious and boring to state.

The "rapists in women's prisons" seems to contain another challenge to atheism, although you don't actually state it and leave us to infer your meaning. Are you implying that religious people produce better prison systems? If so, allow me to descend to your level and ask what you made of the horrible news coming from Honduras this week? 46 women prisoners killed - many deliberately locked in their cells and burnt to death - in a prison riot. It's the latest in a series of prison atrocities to happen in Honduras that include mass rape, torture and mass murder. Honduras is one of the most religious societies in the world - 87 per cent of the people there are practising Christians. What's going on?

[Iska]

Well there isn’t much I can do about that. If you can’t even follow that, you should probably just leave it alone, we’re not going to get anywhere.

[Yorkykopite]

Well there isn’t much I can do about that. If you can’t even follow that, you should probably just leave it alone, we’re not going to get anywhere.

You can try make your points more clearly and not leave people guessing your meaning.

So, for example, are you saying that Christian prisons are generally more humane and rational? Are you saying that atheism is a "post-modern" condition? You seem to be.

[Corkboy]

Christianity has built a colossal body to do just that, over 2,000+ years, and there’s no separate alternative code that remotely compares.

The whole idea of any religion is that it is received, immutable truth. Christianity is, of course, nothing like that. It has changed and evolved over the centuries, to such an extent that one wonders how anyone can swallow any of it.

Hell used to be a place of torment. Now, it's the absence of God's love or some such nonsense. Some Christian sects condemn gay people, others allow them to preach. Purgatory used to be a Thing, so were indulgences, but you don't hear so much about them anymore. Christianity apparently knew nothing about evolution until Darwin started writing about it and now many sects accept it. Isn't that something? Our literal origin as a species, and Christianity was completely ignorant of it for the first 1800 years of its history. The world used to be about 6,000 years old, now it's much older. Some sects are ok with abortion, some aren't, which is breath taking when you consider that those who are against it think it is literally murder. Meanwhile, the only reference in the bible to abortion actually contains instructions on how to do one. Christmas and Easter, two hugely important events in the Christian calendar, were both purloined from existing pagan feast days. The Bible itself is a mishmash of self contradictory rubbish, on everything from incest and circumcision to zombies and human sacrifice. Women are equal before God or a subspecies, depending on where and when you are.

There is an obvious explanation for this, naturally, and it is that the entire thing is man made.

You ask about belief and imagine it’s a simple question like ‘is there a magic man in the sky?’. But that’s to miss the point, there’s an entire city to explore and you can’t do that by looking only at a single brick.

I love that. Firstly, Christians do the same trick with a single book, when there's an entire library to explore. Secondly, religious people always do this, mewl about how "it's not that simple". It is simple. It's simply bullshit.