Do you like religion?

[Dee Man]

50 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Tastes like pork.

Just to clarify, I'm up for having my corpse fed to the vultures, not joining the vultures for a scran. 

Anyone interested in witnessing this spectacle can buy a ticket from Tibet Travel as the Buddhist ritual has become quite popular with tourists:

https://www.tibettravel.org/tibetan-local-customs/tibetan-funeral.html

[Sergeant Wilson]

43 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

Just to clarify, I'm up for having my corpse fed to the vultures, not joining the vultures for a scran. 

Anyone interested in witnessing this spectacle can buy a ticket from Tibet Travel as the Buddhist ritual has become quite popular with tourists:

https://www.tibettravel.org/tibetan-local-customs/tibetan-funeral.html

That would be shite. I would pay to watch you squabble with vultures over DA Baracus corpse.

[BillyAnchor]

2 minutes 48 but worth it

 

 

[Dee Man]

8 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

That would be shite. I would pay to watch you squabble with vultures over DA Baracus corpse.

If rumours are to be believed there would be no need for squabbling. Me and the vultures would be sitting stuffed with plenty left over for dessert.

[DA Baracus]

48 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

That would be shite. I would pay to watch you squabble with vultures over DA Baracus corpse.

 

38 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

If rumours are to be believed there would be no need for squabbling. Me and the vultures would be sitting stuffed with plenty left over for dessert.

What a hurtful pair.

My pillow will be moist with bitter tears tonight.

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

 

What a hurtful pair.

My pillow will be moist with bitter tears tonight.

I only used you as an example, it could have been anyone...come to think of it, you would be the funniest.

[Granny Danger]

41 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

 

What a hurtful pair.

My pillow will be moist with bitter tears tonight.

Local takeaway closing down?

 

[Fullerene]

6 hours ago, Dee Man said:

I'm not. I saw a video of a Tibetan sky burial yesterday where the dead are left on a hillside for the vultures to tear apart. 

I'm having some of that. 

That is what Zoroastrians do?  Don't think that happened to Freddie Mercury - even if his family were of that religion.

[Hillonearth]

2 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

That is what Zoroastrians do?  Don't think that happened to Freddie Mercury - even if his family were of that religion.

To be fair, there wasn't much eating on him by the end up if the These Are The Days Of Our Lives video's anything to go by.

[Dee Man]

4 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

That is what Zoroastrians do?  Don't think that happened to Freddie Mercury - even if his family were of that religion.

 

1 minute ago, Hillonearth said:

To be fair, there wasn't much eating on him by the end up if the These Are The Days Of Our Lives video's anything to go by.

I believe he was eaten by vultures then shot the video.

[Fullerene]

For me, religion was invented in the past to explain things in the past when nobody had an explanation for anything.

I will give an example.

I would like to think that most of you accept that we live on this great big round ball that goes around the sun and has a tilt to its axis which explains why we have seasons.

However, imagine a time when people did not know this - and lived close enough to the equator that the concept of a year and the pattern of seasons was not so obvious.
So each summer is followed by winter and you don't know why.
"Oh no, it is getting colder, the days are getting shorter.  I hope it does not continue like this or we will all freeze to death."

Then some "wise man" comes along and says "hey, don't worry, I know someone who can sort this out."
You respond "Is it you, make it stop.  I prefer when it was warmer and brighter."
"No.  It is not me!  It is this super-being that controls these things."
So you both end up asking this super-being to make things better, and this gets referred to as prayer.

Yes.  I know this all sounds incredibly patronising but here is my point.

At that time, if you believed in this super-being and believe in prayer then you can ask him to bring back summer and each year he does.
Sounds like heaven, even if only for this lifetime.

If on the other hand, you reject this super-being, then you have no idea if this winter or the next will be the one that never stops and we all freeze to death.
Sounds like hell, even if only for this lifetime.

Of course, now that we have science to provide a better explanation - we don't need any of this.

I imagine I will now get some really bad replies regarding the weather in Scotland.  I will just have to pray that I don't.

[Granny Danger]

3 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

For me, religion was invented in the past to explain things in the past when nobody had an explanation for anything.

 

You could have stopped there and we would all have agreed with you.

 

[Fullerene]

8 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

You could have stopped there and we would all have agreed with you.

Yeah but where's the fun in that.

[DA Baracus]

2 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Local takeaway closing down?

 

No, it was your hurtful comments

[milton75]

On 10/26/2018 at 22:27, stuartsmfc said:

Religion is very complex with imo Islam being the most complete and making most sense. 

Islam accepts every prophet from Adam to Abraham, Moses, Noah, Jesus etc and finishing with what they believe, the prophet Muhammad. The Quran has never changed unlike the bible or Torah. It's basically the same message from the Torah and bible without the texts being corrupted. 

It's also worth noting that Jesus never said he was God, the son of God or God in human form which is where the confusion comes in with Christianity.  You won't find anywhere if you look hard enough where he made these claims despite what fanatical Christians will tell you. 

Obviously the question then comes down to whether you believe in God and what religion suits you. I think it's a fallacy that religion causes most wars etc. I watched a video on that before and it explained that secular countries have actually caused more deaths than anything. I'll try and find it.

Its an interesting subject 

First off I'm going to say that you don't sound much like an agnostic (a term I find particularly pointless in any instance, but nevermind), to me your posts read like more those of someone with a vested interest in a religion. But whatever; if you say you're agnostic, fair enough.

Apologies for the multi-quoting, but it seems the easiest way to try and understand what you're saying.

RE Islam "making the most sense", I'm not really sure what you mean. "Making sense" suggests the involvement of logic, and faith and logic do not mix. Religious faith is about belief without the burden of proof. It does not involve logic. It does not "make sense".
If I tell you that my religion involves a God that can turn your penis green, that's no more nonsensical than my God turning water to wine or demanding prayer or fasting. Once I've told you that any of these things are done by God, sense is out the window, because the paradigm involves something that can't be proven.

WRT religious or secular countries killing people, and totting up who is ahead, it's a pretty trite debate for many reasons. Population growth, "industrialisation" of  killing methods, followers of religions being responsible for killing outwith the boundaries of national politics, etc. Mainly it's a fairly unpleasant and futile debate.

On 10/27/2018 at 09:07, stuartsmfc said:

You wouldn't say that because you clearly have no understanding or knowledge about the stories of the prophets or Islam. It's a bit daft to label all religion as nonsense unless you have read every text, which I bet you haven't.

Well 1) there's no-one that's read every religious text that's ever existed and could therefore make a fully informed comparison, and 2) Unless there's a text that can prove the existence of the God it describes, it's nonsensical. 

On 10/27/2018 at 10:58, stuartsmfc said:

This again goes along with the fallacy that religion and science contradict each other. Do you know where science originated?

I assume here that you're referring to the fact that scientific development and in fact wider academia was sponsored in institutions that tended to be religiously founded? I'm not really sure that it's relevant in that if science outgrows religion and offers explanations that religion cannot, then it doesn't actually matter if Pythagoras went to a religious school (and in his case I don't know if he did). It's akin to a modern-day American inventor coming up with something great and me telling them they'd never have gotten there if a bunch of Brits, Spanish and Dutch hadn't founded America. It's irrelevant.

On 10/27/2018 at 11:34, stuartsmfc said:

Bit of a stupid example tbh. Religion for the most part deals with fundamental questions that humans have asked since the beginning of time.  If you don't care why we are here and if there's a meaning of life then don't look any further. But if you do then religion can answer those questions for you. I'm not saying it's for everyone but it's naive to suggest that everyone who follows a religion is dumb and irrational. From people I know, they came to their faith pretty rationally tbh. 

Again, I'd like to know what you mean by "rationally". There is, by definition, a leap of faith, or irrationality, required to believe in something that cannot be proven.

On 10/27/2018 at 11:40, stuartsmfc said:

Well let's use the Quran as an example here. It tells you numerous times to question and try to prove it wrong. Over and over again. As I've said the people I know came to their conclusions rationally and by questioning for years. I'm not religious myself, I'm agnostic. But I'm not narrow minded enough to say "Oh that's alot of bullshit"

It would do you no harm to learn about what each religion actually believes in and teaches before saying it's all stupid.

You're asking here that I prove a negative. An irrational suggestion in of itself.

[sugna]

On 26/10/2018 at 22:27, stuartsmfc said:

It's also worth noting that Jesus never said he was God, the son of God or God in human form which is where the confusion comes in with Christianity.  You won't find anywhere if you look hard enough where he made these claims despite what fanatical Christians will tell you. 

OK, let's take a scientific approach to this: instead of assuming it's de facto true, let's see if we can come up with a test for falsifiability.

A specific claim is made that's testable. Going to my magical tales shelf, next to my favourite Prose Edda, I pick up a Christian Bible, KJV.

Nothing in the OT, hardly a surprise, NT, gospels, John 5:18 onwards. Looks like a son-of-god claim to me.

Of course, it could be argued that the language is allegorical, or that it's reported speech, or indeed that the whole thing is a lot of inconsistent ancient weak-minded nonsense. But it could equally be argued that it constitutes Jebus saying what he "never said".

The problem with taking a rational, data-respecting approach to debating subjects that wholly rely on the opposite, you're really on a hiding to nowt. Someone once said (something like): "You will never persuade a man, through the use of reason, to abandon a position into which he has brought himself through a lack of reason." It's hard to accept that, and it's beyond me, personally, to do so; but I think it's probably right enough.

[Fullerene]

On ‎30‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 10:37, Angusfifer said:

The 2011 census results make interesting reading. People who regard themselves as having no religion are far fewer in parts of the west of Scotland where there is a significant religious divide. For example Airdrie would appear to have an unusually small number of non-religious people (22%) compared to the national average of 37%. It would be interesting to find out what proportion of the 35% of those who describe themselves as Church of Scotland and the 32% of Roman Catholics actually are adherents of their respective faiths...

My father once told me about visiting an uncle in Airdrie.

Whenever he was introduced to anyone, his uncle would quietly whisper in his ear - "one of them" or "one of us".

My father was too polite to ask what this meant - although he did work it out later.

[Dee Man]

4 hours ago, Fullerene said:

My father once told me about visiting an uncle in Airdrie.

Whenever he was introduced to anyone, his uncle would quietly whisper in his ear - "one of them" or "one of us".

My father was too polite to ask what this meant - although he did work it out later.

He was talking about lizard people, wasn't he?

[banana]

On 10/29/2018 at 20:26, Gordon EF said:

What is better... a lie that draws a smile or a truth that draws a tear?

This suggests a simplistic framework that assumes that all science = truth, all religion = lies, which is obviously ludicrous not to mention dangerous.

There is obvious crossover, but they both address different things from different directions. Science is largely interested in something like facts via empiricism,  which is and has been greatly beneficial; religion is largely interested in something like meaning and action, wisdom, which is and has been greatly beneficial, but is being / has been baby-and-bathwatered because of the obvious faults pointed out about religion.

We know more things about some things more than ever, but in the grand scheme still little about anything. The fundamental questions of existence and meaning, what to do, how to act, what a good life means, what is virtue and valuable, what beauty means, the role of art, symbolism, a drumbeat, family, community, duty, ... all remain. A structure, set of stories, instructions, consequences on how to navigate these has been ejected at the alter of militant rationalism/knowitallism in its different forms, and as I said before we have been scrambling like f**k to fill that void with something, anything, never mind something better.

We have and are failing badly at this, as far as I can tell, because in the situation of knowing little about much, that particular void can't be successfully replaced by anything other than faith. Large scale existential crises on the individual and societal level evidently appears otherwise. I think it's an overriding point that even someone like Dawkins concedes, and even the late Christopher Hitchens came around to, and that you/society pick your/its poison lest your/its poison picks you. Bar a revival of Christianity, a confident Islam looks like the likely contender to fill that void.

[banana]

Recent chat between an atheist philosopher and a theist mathematician that goes over some of the fundementals on these shenanighans, well worth a careful listen and consideration.