Santa V God

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by Snoopy

Yeah, right.

s.

I want to leave but they wont let me!!

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

That is a good way to put it. Something that has cropped up on this thread and is a common response is that I am somehow 'missing' something, that I am deficient or incapable. Its like people saying how dare you come to the teddy bears picnic without a teddy. Or you aint a black man so you cant say the word nigga. Well you do not have do be a theist to understand exactly what God is in the human psyche. The example you give there Chris is superb because you could choose to label yourself anyone of them and everybody here would give you respect. You have virtually unlimited scope to adopt or even invent a paradigm and people will be, or will at least act, credulous. Yet present all paradigms as stemming from the same source, the human mind, and qualify it with the simplest examples of why this fact is indeed fact and you get nothing but derision, irrelevant point picking and accusations that it is you with the closed mind. This reads as though I am angry. I am not. It might read as though I feel I am not respected here. I do not feel that either. But I do feel the burden of 'proof' that is demanded of me far surpasses that which the theist feels adequate to support their beliefs. I never expected the almost rhetorical question at the head of this thread to run like this. I have put forward my case as far as I care to go with it. I think I will retire now to the politics threads where I am more naturally at home.


's for everybody


tao

I just wanted to try to put a human face on the experience of transcending religion and the need to believe. I know what people think: "poor Chris, it must be hard to be in such a dark and hopeless space. He doesn't believe in anything anymore. How utterly tragic." But it's not like that. The birds still bird, the bees still be, everything is still marvelous, nature is fabulous, and life is a joy. I'm still on the "spiritual" path. But pushing on into the new frontier requires that I honor a pact of intellectual honesty that I made with myself long ago. I didn't decide to just chuck everything and quit. I haven't quit anything. I'm on the path I'm supposed to be on. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. I don't know if working yourself through and beyond the need for religion is a natural phase in everyone's path, but it is in mine.

Chris

[Paladin]

Well Chris, there are those who have mapped out that kind of progression. The trouble is, people take offense if they perceive that progression in terms of "better than" or "less than".
I mean, lets face it, enlightenment could be just this, right now with everything just as it is. Wouldn't it be a real kicker if it turned out that there was no path, nothing to live or die for, just this. As it is.
If that were true then you among all of us is already there because you choose to be in touch with being and seek no filters, no consolation or certainty.

I mean, dude, you're the shiznit!

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

I always expect that to crop up sooner or later in a discussion like this. It is not the fault of the average atheist that history threw up and gave power to such monsters. Supplanting a religious ideology with a radical political one is not what I am saying here at all. If what I am saying was carried through to conclusion it would be as difficult for dictatorships of politics to arise as religions.

tao

Not really. It would just be a religion where the State becomes god. (Sounds like Stalin and Mao, huh?)

It looks like radicals come in different flavors, not just religious, and not just political.

[seattlegal]

Originally Posted by Netti-Netti

Tao, what percent of children in the UK receive ANY religious upbringing at all?

Since the UK probably observes separation of church and state, how likely is it that they are receiving religious education in public schools?

So where is the "forced feeding" occurring exactly?

And which segment of the adult population is doing it? Recall that the UK has a secular majority. Most don't believe in G-d. So are you saying there is some conspiracy run by a minority that is prevailing on society as a whole via a surreptitious indoctrination that's happening outside the purview of normal intitutional processes?

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

The UK is not like the US. Religious education in school is mandatory up till 16 years of age. The schools are denomenational. Catholics go to Catholic schools and everybody else goes to so called mixed schools. Though there are an increasing number of Muslim schools too. I think all the Jewish schools are private.

But please be patient, I will address all your questions in due course.

tao

Tao and I discussed how forced religious education will naturally lead to a decrease in religion here.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by wil

I got a lump of coal one year. Still love Santa. Won't be long my hair will be white enough I won't have to wear the wig..

I cant wait til my hair grows white..... That will be a happy day. I'll allow it to grow free and long

As a kid I always wanted to look like one of my fantasy heroes Sephiroth lol.

[Thomas]

Purely for the sake of balance, I think it's fair to observe that it seems Tao will not rest until every sign of faith, every doctrine and dogma (except his own, of course) is eradicated.

As I have said before, I 'wandered off' in my youth, and by the time I found my Catholicism anew, I had a partner and three children being educated in the state system. Neither she nor they are baptised, and neither she nor they have ever had to defend themselves against my Catholicism. My partner is areligious and against religious education. Any attempt to educate my children would have been perceived as indoctrination and would have been fiercely resisted. This is not up for discussion, but purely as background.

+++

Religious education in the UK which is, as observed, effectively a secular state, is minimal. Gone are the hymns and prayers of the (state) schools of my youth, and RI (Religious Instruction — ie the instruction of being in a religion) became RE (Religious Education — information about various religions) and now is little more than a teenage look at morality and ethics.

Religious instruction, with regard to the central tenets of Christianity, or indeed any religion, is non-existent. In a secular educational system, it's all myth, superstition, an interesting cultural history.

Today its all about societal issues — broadly social morality and ethics. The religious underpinnings of such systems is ignored.

Faith Schools have always existed — Catholic schools since the nineteenth century when the law allowed the practice of Catholicism in the UK once again and Jewish schools ... but UK society in general has grown increasingly more hostile to the idea of faith schools, Tao is among the majority voice there. Attempts have been made to ban them, and there is a strong lobby to do so, but the state finds itself looking embarrassingly authoritarian if it does so, especially as faith schools perform well in the general statistical analysis of education. Its state schools which fail.

Interestingly, Catholic schools are always heavily over-subscribed, and non-religious people will do everything possible, move house, attend mass, to get their kids into a catholic school. Here the 'traditional values' of basic good manners are observed, backed with a disciplinary system that is as tough as the law allows, and if the child continues to misbehave then the parents are called in.

I find Tao's vision, at times, bordering on the hysterical. To say religion holds any sway in the UK is a nonsense, and only last year the BBC was faced with an embarrassing leak of an internal memo which admitted an anti-Christian bias ... BBC religious programming for the most part is a discreet questioning and undermining of the traditional Christian image.

As I have been observing, the representation of the religion on TV has never been other than that of murderous or adulterous priests, and monks and nuns are always maniacs — I have never seen the even-handed characterisation of the religious life. My family delight in shouting "It's him!" as soon as a dog-collar appears in a TV detective show, and in the recent list, they have been right.

If every gay character was presented as a paedophile in the media, there would be an outcry of unfair treatment.

Catholics, who are presented as fanatics, obsessives, peadophiles, murderers, etc ... we're just over-reacting.

The European Commission, fighting for a Constitution, has sought to eradicate every mention of Christianity from the history of Europe and its cultural and social emergence and development, as if it never happened.

+++

Secularism is, of course, the new fundamentalism — it allows and will stand for nothing but it's own opinion, and Tao is its heroic spokesperson.

Thomas

[Tao_Equus]

Thank you for your kind words Thomas




Each of us lives in our own little perception bubble. And it seems they all claim bias in the BBC. My complaint was not founded on the portraits of fictional drama, which I do not watch, but on factual programming that completely ignores the great harm religions have brought upon people. The association and support of the catholic Church for the Nazi's is a prime example. As I recently highlighted on another thread the Catholic sponsorship and running of Nazi concentration camps in Croatia with the full knowledge and support of the then pope has never been addressed on any religious program. Half a million people exterminated by the Catholic Church so recently and it is never mentioned because there is a collusion of silence. Instead we get some little nun running around the centres of religious art telling us how they represent all the beautiful and divine aspects of theological thinking. So do not tell me there is bias. Religion gets special treatment. It is shown only in the best possible light. That fiction so often portrays the clergy to be devious, underhand and murderous is probably more accurate than the factual programming and such social stereotyping got there for good reason.

As for RE in schools, all schools are required by law to provide a daily act of collective worship, of which over the course of the academic year at least 51% must be Christian in basis. The curriculum is required to reflect the predominant place of Christianity in religious life and hence Christianity form the majority of the content of the subject.
I have not as yet followed the thread SG links to above but I presume that it relates to a thread I started some time ago which was inspired by the difficulties and harsh treatment my son was receiving from his RE teacher. She was a dour old fundamentalist Presbyterian who has, ( hallelujah!! ), since been forcibly retired. There is an increasingly vociferous campaign by liberal thinkers and academics to remove RE from the classroom altogether and incorporate it into social studies and history. I would support such a move. But there is a more worrying trend in the corridors of power going right to the top that wants to go the other way and increase religious study. Only time will tell who wins this battle.

I make no apologies for championing the dissolution of religion in society in the meagre way I do so here. Most of the threads here that discuss religion deal with the minutiae of contextual interpretations from ancient texts. How often do I see a thread condemning and seeking out ways to prevent the further occurrence the great deprivations the religions have forced upon mankind? Amongst the religious there is virtually no debate about the rot within and by this omission atheists like me are continually obliged to remind you. In other words, if theists were honest people like me would not have to bother. This lack of self-scrutiny and effort to right the wrongs history has painted large in the blood of the innocent is not a small detail. It is an integral part of the religious delusion. People like me are left with no choice. By ignoring the wrongs you allow them to perpetuate and this is what they are doing across the world today. The modern Holy War is real and 100s of people die every day in the name of God. This is the reality. To me religion is not worth the price.

tao

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

Tao and I discussed how forced religious education will naturally lead to a decrease in religion here.

Your last words from that thread:

Doesn't an attempt to produce a compulsory, one-size-fits-all religious education program fit the description of enforced medicrity? IMHO, it's a surefire way to kill any desire for religion. JMHO.

Not often I'd argue for mediocrity.... but here I am embracing it wholesale.

[Ciel]

Thomas,

Thank you for the honesty of your post.

My child is now grown, with children of her own who were both home educated through the early formative years until they themselves desired to enter into a local village school. It is a wonderful place with a wholesome nature, and there is a church attached where they assembly. It is a strange thing because it does not press religious education but is encompassed as naturally as the fabric of a village society where there is a respect and order in life.
And I who you know to be far from orthodox respect this also. I teach and listen to them in my own way, aware of the fragility of human nature I am grateful for simplicity and love to flow.

You and I have begged to differ much in the past and yet you might be surprized how I understand the underlying principles of your life and faith.

peace - c -

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Ciel

You and I have begged to differ much in the past and yet you might be surprized how I understand the underlying principles of your life and faith.

peace - c -

I think Thomas would appreciate marmite Ciel

[Ciel]

Nice smile you have today Mr P.......

And you've reminded me...... I'm in need of lunch.
Been in the garden making good on the work the gardener did when he cleared the banks of all beautiful wild flowers useing modern technology, I stopped him half way but the deed half done was even worse because I could see how beautiful the nature was untouched......... so I cleared the rest by more gentle means and blended the two together to bring back the love.

Mmmmmm marmite dipped hot toast in egg.............

- c -

[Paladin]

Originally Posted by Alex P

I cant wait til my hair grows white..... That will be a happy day. I'll allow it to grow free and long

As a kid I always wanted to look like one of my fantasy heroes Sephiroth lol.

Umm, I hate to have to be the one to tell you this Alex, but by the time the hair begins to get white, it also starts thinning out too.
Oh, and it begins to start growing from other places too.

[17th Angel]

Originally Posted by Paladin

Umm, I hate to have to be the one to tell you this Alex, but by the time the hair begins to get white, it also starts thinning out too.
Oh, and it begins to start growing from other places too.

Not the ears, please tell me that is just an urban myth... Please not the ears!

Ciel Egg and marmite? That is a bit too much for me... lol Not as hardcore fan of Marmite as you then, you are the master!

[Ciel]

Paladin, hi

Like the lady in the pic my hair turned white at 30.........

......... but it's still there

- c -