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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:07/31/2008 08:06:54)
"(Hanas) was forced to - read the Bible for hours a day"
LMAO - as a practicing Catholic he wouldn't ever be caught doing _that_ of course! :D
For the record, most professional social help groups are rooted in faith. Of course you have to make sure whoever is responsible for providing care is doing so responsibly.
I would be unhappy with a secular court handing out programmes for non secular treatment. Even though I firmly believe that many ills are a result of spiritual problems.
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snakechic
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/07/2008 20:20:21)
spiritual problems?
would that also include bigotry against other religious denominations?
eh..
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In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince people that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy person living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, woman(man) is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.
-- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God
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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/08/2008 05:09:32)
No. All though that is precisely what secular 'proffessional support' does all the time with people of faith.
Because the predominant western world view is anti religious then it's perfectly acceptable in law for them to be bigoted.
Do you agree with that?
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logophile
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/11/2008 13:21:33)
Guest,
How is the predominant western worldview anti-religious? In America (and to a slightly lesser exetent in Canada)you can't go anywhere or turn on a TV without seeing something of a religious nature. 82 % of people in the US believe in a god...I'm not sure what the stats are in Europe, maybe someone else can help me out there. You yourself stated that "most social help organizations are rooted in faith", and I beleive you're somewhat correct on that one. It's also far easier to find a priest,rabbi,etc to perform a wedding or funeral than it is to find any kind of secular celebrant. All in all, among everyday working people, being a "beleiver" is very socially acceptable, being a skeptic is not cool. Trust me I know, I've been on both sides of the coin and I've seen how folks react.
Long story short, I don't see much anti-religious sentiment going on in my part of the Western World, unless the religion happens to be Islam. Anything that falls under the umbrella of Christian (or even of "spirituality") tends to get all kinds of acknowledgement and respect, whether it deserves it or not.
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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/11/2008 15:17:36)
In the UK the percentage of Christians to the total population is a little above 2%, and the vast majority of those are in the black majority churches. Yet the world statistics for Christians is roughly 33%.
Supposedly America holds a high percentage of Christians in it's bible belt. Yet if you look on the internet Christians are represented far less than 33% of the time I think it'd be fair to say. Few and far between are the responses to the swarms of pro atheist cartoons, jokes, put downs, etc etc etc.
If you think you're in the minority as a religion hating atheist, you live in a very different reality to me.
Science is now the world view. Even I, as a Christian, would think that you were absurd if you suggested anything other than that science formed the basis of our understanding of everything around us. Yet when science was first begun in earnest, supported by the Christian church, the predominant world view was that God explained everything.
I know atheists who don't rule out the possibility that there might be a God. You can't count those amongst the believers though, and that's the only way you could ever justify that the world view isn't what now governs certainly all of the western world, if not in reality the eastern world as well.
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logophile
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/12/2008 08:52:41)
I'm not sure where you're getting your statistics. According to religioustolerance.org, around 74% of people in England and Wales identified themselves as Christian (stats from 2004). I've seen other reports that claimed it was only about half that number, but nothing as low as 3%. I understand that Europe is far more secular than North America, but fifteen hundred or so years of religious influence isn't going to evaporate overnight.
If you're from the UK, you are most likely watching different TV shows than I am here in North America, but I can tell you that here, most family-oriented shows portray religion (almost always Christianity) in a positive way. There aren't any openly atheist lead characters on any show here (except for the title character on "House", who's written as an amoral, miserable SOB)
It's very cool for young people to claim they love Jesus, or at the very least to say they beleive in God. I read that high school students today hold more conservative social ideas than those of say, 20 or 30 years ago. Most schools allow students to have a Bible study club or Christian club of some kind."Spirituality", much like "creativity" is a must have trait these days, it seems. Someone can't even be considered for the presidency unless he comes clean about what his religion is (and he better damn well have one, and it better feature Jesus).
You and I must be looking at a whole different internet. I've found that the internet has many welcoming places for Christians. There are chatrooms, message boards, dating sites, movie reviews, bookstores,bible study guides...everything you can imagine all geared to Christians. From my experience it's far easier to stumble upon Christian material than non-theist information. When I first walked away, I had to go about looking for ex-Christian and atheist type of information (it wasn't hard to find once I looked, but I did have to make the effort) whereas the Christian material was abundant and spammed into my inbox several times a week.
I'm not saying the world is not becoming increasingly secular. I'm just pointing out that religion still has a place, and that with all the technology available to us that connects us to others, we can all find our niche, and other people, products, and information that share our worldview..... Or we can purposely visit sites that hold the opposite worldview and badger people for fun.
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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/12/2008 10:38:58)
OK here's a challenge for you - go find one decent cartoon response to all the anti Christian/ pro atheist cartoons on YouTube
I don't come here to badger people at all. I'm quite in agreement that fundamentalists of any flavour are really bad news. I totally empathise with the position. I happen to be Christian too. If you'd like to exclude Christians then that's fine. I just thought I would be included.
Some are quite anti Christian, having being hurt. That's understandable. Like I said on another post, it's people that do the bad stuff - not the organisation/ insert bully classification here.
3% is the actual figure arrived at by a study in the uk. Blimey, you'd be hung in the uk for even suggesting that religion had any sort of footing. Kids here are far too ashamed to be associated with any sort of faith. We're talking 1 or 2 brave souls that dare to state their affiliation. Parents will send their children to sunday school etc, but there's no or little backing, kids make up their own minds.
Homosexuality, on the other hand, is so rife in sixth form colleges that the percentage figure for the population needs to be revised because in 6th forms it's about 40%. Homosexuality is fashionable here in the uk, and that's reflected in the laws we set.
Christians in the uk are talking about the faith going underground after it's removed from the corridors of power. And that's seen as a very positive thing. Faith has no place there. It's entangled itself in power due to people in the past abusing that power.
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logophile
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/12/2008 12:52:26)
Honestly, Guest, I've never searched for anti-Christian cartoons on YouTube, so I don't know exactly what's out there. Send me a link. I don't think it's right to make nasty cartoons about people's religion, but I do think it's fine to lampoon organizations that are hypocritical and opressive. Either way, it's freedom of speech and it's gonna be out there. Where are these cartoons coming from? Who's putting them on there? If atheists or just smartassed people are putting them up there, then it's up to Chrsitians to come up with good responses. You can find the Sunday sermon from any church you want on You Tube, you can find every joe schmo's armchair interpretation of the Bible,you can find footage of worship music and creation science lectures. Christians ARE on YouTube. If they want to respond to the nasty cartoons, then it would be up to them.
I think you and I coming from two different perspectives partly due to our geographical locations. You're in the UK, and I'm in North America. What I see happening here is very different from what you see happening there. It's a different culture. There's also no way I can accurately refute your point of view of UK religious acceptance or lack thereof because I don't live in the UK and never have. I do have to express my extreme sketpicism about your statement concerning 40% of young people in 6th form being homosexual. I'm not sure how old kids in 6th form are (we go by grades here and in 6th grade kids are around 11 years old) but whatever the age, it seems impossible that that high a percentage are identifying as gay. In the US there have always told the "british queer" jokes, but 40% seems just plain ridiculous. I'll have to look that one up, but wow. Anyway, I'm not sure what homosexuality has to do with our conversation about religion anyway. You claim not to be a fundamentalist, so why care who is gay?
Let me ask you this, though...what place do you think faith should have in your country? Why do you think religion is losing it's hold where you live? What would you like to see changed?
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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/12/2008 13:30:40)
There's plenty of extremist rubbish on YouTube of the fundamentalist variety. There is good stuff too. The good stuff is extremely sparse tho' I'd suggest. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/urlTBBKTO68&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&fs=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/urlTBBKTO68&color1=11645361&color2=13619151&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> (hope that works!) Can I define something.. religion = bad - God hates religious people. Faith is good - and what religion should be about. To quote a friend... if religion were all there were to Christianity, I'd be partying it up somewhere. --- Sorry, I mean years12 & 13 - college age kids - in the UK, kids that intend to go on to University study 2 years, usually in their old schools, as all schools seem to have 6th forms nowadays. In lower school - traditional High School for ages 11 to 16, 'Gay' is a swear word. With the freedom of upper school, I suppose when kids are naturally inquisitive about their sexuality, it's a greyed area anyway at that age I believe (John Lennon certainly concurred anyway! (sorry - obtuse! ;)). I would make a serious estimate of around 40% that declare themselves, or actually physically try out, homosexual relations. I worked in a High School myself until 6 months ago in IT management. Sorry, I have nothing against homosexuality or homosexuals at all. You may even think my opinion liberal, although I'm pretty down the line conventional Christian I believe. It was just something that came to mind in the debate. I do think it's sad that homosexuality, for instance, is so very popular that kids feel some pressure to experiment. Which I'm pretty certain could do them a lot of harm. If your world view is so different to mine, do you agree with me then? "Let me ask you this, though...what place do you think faith should
have in your country? Why do you think religion is losing it's hold
where you live? What would you like to see changed" Faith should be only about faith. Faith is a central figure in human life experience, and is essential for personal health. It's easier to say where it shouldn't be, and the big man set plenty of examples - hating the exploitative religious and pious yet hollow theologians. Other things take faiths place: materialism, comfort, riches. People are too comfortable to want to be bothered with something that can sometimes be uncomfortable. It's the easy route. The religious cling onto tradition and fail to move with the times. Christianity has to be crucial for this moment in time. People are wholly faithless. They're shooting rapids without lifejackets. Flotsam floating on the waves. I'd like to see large communities of people convicted to to good things, as faith by all evidence seems to inspire great deeds. Just imagine if there were thousands of people with the variety of talent that would provide to choose from to be a force for good in the world.
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Guest
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RE:Between a rock and a hard place
(Date Posted:08/12/2008 13:31:38)
Try again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlTBBKTO68
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logophile
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11# |
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