side effect
9:41 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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I just ate sausage beens and chippings so there
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AfM
9:12 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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HairyHammer 5:25 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
You seem to think atheism is much more than it actually is. In some ways you are an atheist because you don't actively believe in any gods. You just think there might be one.
I think that too. It's just that I don't believe any of the gods described to me so far exist. As such, I'm an atheist. It's far from a worldview. It's just one simple thing; the lack of belief in any gods.
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side effect
8:58 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Nicely said Gentile
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side effect
8:56 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Wonder why he mentioned cancer and not aids the filthy dirty sodomite.
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peroni
7:00 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Gentile 8:07 Wed Feb 4
Don't take it personally Gentile. If you need an imaginary friend and the fear of damnation to keep you on the straight and narrow, then that's absolutely fine. You seem very unhappy with the state of the world and your existence in general though. A bit like the radical Muslims, as it happens.
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HairyHammer
5:25 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Eerie Descent
Do you understand that most things are to do with circumstance ? I.E if you are doing well in life or your parents were not religious or taught it to you harshly you are much more likely to be atheist, it is that simple.
I am not religious and never will be probably apart from the simple belief that God may exist that is it and even that I got from my parents I do not find myself in the all seeing and all knowing position that you have being atheist.
You also have a thing against Islam and Muslims i suspect because they or a majority of them choose to actually partake in their religion and many with all the garb and paraphernalia that may or may not be required for it.
Believe me a covered head or a big bushy beard is as foreign to me as it is to you and much of my family absolutely detest the strict observance of Religion and only see religion as a thing to think of when death comes around. 98% of my family have no idea what the inside of a mosque even looks like and do not care about that either I am not proud that I am pretty much the same.
When you say Religion does not make sense on any rational level then that means to me that you have never needed religion and that is all good, but to say that something is rubbish or does not add up to billions of people who's whole being is tied emotionally and spiritually to their belief system is not a matter of intellect but arrogance.
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Monk~koknee
4:56 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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"It is an attempt to reconcile the scientific with theology"
Or How Religion changes it's story as science proves each part of the story is wrong.
I don't believe religious people are stupid just misguided and unable to shake off their conditioning despite the evidence.
All the talk about free will is diversionary hogwash unless you are only interested in a purely academic debate.
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HairyHammer
4:52 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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People who believe that religion is simply about choice are as stupid as a dog turd.
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AfM
4:47 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Hermit Road 11:54 Wed Feb 4
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
No. There could be cause and effect leading to a material brain capable of independent thought and no god.
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normannomates
4:04 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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top bloke is Fry...very brave talking about his condition.
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stomper
3:44 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Nurse Ratched 8:32 Wed Feb 4
I'm sure Nurse only makes Angel Cakes
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Hugh Monteith
2:24 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Stevo is very entertaining, and we can all thank God for that
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easthammer
1:55 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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I don't usually post on "religious" threads - the argument is usually pretty sterile. Some of the recent posts here however particularly the interchanges between Hermit and Afm grabbed my attention in the light of a free e-book that I just finished reading.
First published in 2005 ( updated more recently I believe) "The God of Chance" by David J. Bartholomew
http://www.godofchance.com/
It will challenge both atheists and theists.
It is an attempt to reconcile the scientific with theology ( from a Christian perspective)
It puts forward a view that free will and a deterministic designed cosmos can coexist. (It argues much more predominately that "chance" is an integral part of God's plan and that it is essential for true freedom within a purposeful universe)
If you fall into the camp that science and theology are irreconcilable please read.
Even if like me you don't think that - read it. It will give you ammunition to counter the sterile argument that if you believe in God you must be stupid.
PS You can skip the chapter on the statistics, I wish I had then I could have continued to argue (erroneously it turns out) that God is statistically most likely.
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stomper
1:19 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Surely the only prayer that makes any sense is 'Thy will be done.'
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BRANDED
1:13 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Shag you cuz?
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Gentile
1:10 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Ronny my lamb
I don't pray for a better life. I am thankful for the life I have been given. I try to interpret the doctrine in a simple way. Be nice to people, be thoughtful, be kind to strangers, be tolerant of others, be grateful, love your family and friends.
Pretty simple stuff being a Christian Ronny.
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stomper
12:42 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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I’m not entirely sure what is meant by ‘free will’. Doesn’t only become an issue if you posit a deity who has it within his gift.
I we live in a godless universe, and if our thoughts and actions are determined by chemical reactions and physical conditions, isn’t the infinite (or at least vast) possibilities of action and context in which all creatures live, and have lived, acted and reacted chaotic enough to create a de facto similitude of ‘Free will’.
A free will surely more ‘free’ than any which might lay within the gift of a capricious deity?
And Galileo wasnt 'wrong' according to the science of the time. His house arrest facilitated much of the science, rather than the dogma of the time.
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Hermit Road
12:19 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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It was Galileo, a man of God, and he wasn't tortured, and based on the science of the time, he was wrong.
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Hammer and Pickle
12:16 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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That was Galileo actually Willtell.
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Willtell
12:08 Thu Feb 5
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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Hermit Road wrote...
"...Here's my problem though, if all my thoughts are the inevitable effects caused by chemical reactions in my brain, I can't choose to either believe in god or not believe in him. I can't choose anything...."
I'm not sure you have the right idea there HR. We each have a brain that has evolved out of chemical reactions but, it has developed sufficiently well so that you definitely have a choice to decide whether there is a god or not.
All you have to do is think about it instead of believing what a preacher has been telling from a very young age in all probability. It's called indoctrination and it involves repeating stories to children over and over again until they believe....
And as for Gentile's assertion that modern society is rotten well, he's right but, was it any better when prophets chop off the heads of more than a 100 enemies, go to war and marry 6 year olds in the name of Allah and be believed by 1.6bn people?
Was it any better when Capernicus was tortured by Catholics for lying about the construction of the universe when he was right and the men of god were wrong? And what about the Pope's army that slaughtered all the Cathars in SW France because they weren't Catholics? And ISIS committing murder in the name and belief that god is on their side?
Britain last went to war lead by a man that believed he had god on his side and so told lies that Saddam Hussein had WMD and we needed to get him now before he got us. That worked out well and if anyone doesn't know it. That's Tony Blair who is one seriously religious nutter.
Look at every country in Africa and the middle east. All run by religious peoples that have no democracy; rife with serious corruption, murder and genocide is a common occurrence yet how can all those people be so rotten and so religious at the same time?
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Hermit Road
11:54 Wed Feb 4
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
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AfM 11:33 Wed Feb 4
Re: Stephen Fry talking about God
It is also possible that you have free will and there is no god.
Not unless you just invent something godlike to replace god.
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