Praying No Longer On Council Meeting Agenda

[ballaughbiker]

I do not see that this is forcing of religious practice on anyone

Ok we differ on that very basic point.

 

Either side can shout intolerance but you really have to examine the relevance of what you are doing and how reasonable it is in whatever context before you accuse an opponent to the situation as intolerant. To split hairs saying the meeting hadn't started yet is simply ludicrous too.

 

I stand by my belief that religion is generally very intolerant of anything which might be seen as questioning its perceived power in whatever form that might take. The religious section seem to be unable or unwilling to accept that their desire to pray at the exclusion of those that don't want to is a completely unreasonable and marginalising behaviour. Of course it can be quite quite handy to marginalise opponents......

 

As to

There is no public will to do away with the established constitutional settlement of a Monarch etc

Really?

 

I say live and let live.

Me too and we'll start with accepting that it's just not right to force our religion whatever that may be on those who don't want it. You live with your religious dogma at let live those who don't want anything to do with it.

[ballaughbiker]

She's right - Britain is becoming intolerant. I have never, ever, heard someone with religious beliefs deride someone without religious beliefs

 

You can say that objection to the old established order is intolerance if that old order suits you. Doesn't mean to say it is though.

 

Derision can take many forms including but not limited to exclusion and marginalisation. How intolerant (if you must keep using that word) is that?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Doesn't matter whether it is un-British or not, unless you have some overriding nationalist concern.

 

But you are talking a load of poop here and so is that politician, because tolerance isn’t some wonderful thing that should be desired across the Board. As I have said, there are some things we tolerate and should tolerate and others we don’t and shouldn’t.

 

In respect of religion, the religious can pray in the church, the home, the street, and work and many others places. The only issue here is when it is made PART of government. It should not be seen to be a necessary part of government and governments should not support or be seen to support particular religions or all religions. There should be no bias. It’s that simple.

 

The very people who criticise a government bias for Christianity are those who don’t want the government interfering with their religion and Churches.

 

But yes, religion is under attack in areas where it needs to be removed.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

The brilliant Lady Warsi, who is changing her own daughter to a Christian school, speaks out for tolerance, and argues that it is only when Britons are sure of their own religious identity that they can respect other faiths.

Are you trolling, because there is nothing brilliant about this woman whether you agree with her here or not?

 

She has probably missed the fact that many, many people do not have a religious identity and certainly don't share a Christian one.

[P.K.]

Sign up to your local council? I don't know what you mean. In practice, you move somewhere and come under the governance of the local council. You don't apply. There is no choice about it.

Everyone else who read that would probably have taken it to mean 'become a member of your local council.' Sometimes, LDV...

 

Spot on.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Everyone else might have read it like that, but I was trying to make sense of the argument and referring to the members of the council alone would be baffling. It isn't a club.

[Endovelicus]

http://www.telegraph...-for-words.html

 

DAWKINS LOST FOR WORDS!

 

It happened during Radio 4's 'Today' programme. In a debate with Rev Giles Fraser on the figures produced by Prof Dawkins’s think tank, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. (A typical Dawkins touch: not just any old Foundation for Reason and Science but the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.)

 

If you were trying to come up with a definition of misplaced intellectual arrogance, you could not do better than having the planet’s most famous atheist issuing diktats on who does and doesn’t count as a proper Christian. Prof Dawkins then announced, triumphantly, that an “astonishing number [of Christians] couldn’t identify the first book in the New Testament”.

 

The transcript of the next minute or so only hints at how cringingly, embarrassingly bad it was for Dawkins.

Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that.

Dawkins: Yes I could.

Fraser: Go on then.

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

It was a golden minute of radio.

 

I'm not exactly religious but, having been lucky enough to hear this, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed hearing that arrogant sod squirm so helplessly!

 

 

Edited to add that the title of Dawkins' personal bible is: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

[ballaughbiker]

Is that point a general dig at atheists because I'm not quite seeing the connection with council meeting prayers. Is there one apart from the points alleged atheists have been making on this thread and the fact that he is a famous atheist? Just wondered.

[Chinahand]

Oh how the mighty fall, hey. I agree Richard Dawkins has an image problem and his rhetorical spearing by Giles Fraser will have brightened many a breakfast table.

 

But to be frank this is image-politics and rhetoric.

 

What is the issue - what is a Christian.

 

... and what is the problem - that answering this question involves a supernatural being who looks into people's hearts and decides, based on their beliefs, whether they acknowledge a certain manifestation of this supernatural being as their saviour, and if they do then they gain an eternity of sweetness and light, and if not ... well at its most liberal, abandonment, and at its most biblically literal, at best, wailing and gnashing teeth, at worst a firey pit for eternity.

 

This isn't about being a good person or a bad person - because the most evil, the most destructive, the most selfish will get the reward based on their acceptance, and the most noble, the most caring, the most put upon will be dispatched elsewhere based on their doubt and disbelief.

 

I disbelieve in supernatural beings, in a zombie bringing me judgement and conditional salvation based on my worship of him followed by an eternity of heaven, or hell. I find these ideas primitive, unscientific, close to immoral - the rapist is forgiven no matter the damage they have done, not by the person raped, but by some outsider, based not on the wrong done, but on the worship of the judge. But this is what makes someone a "true" Christian.

 

It isn't about the community helping itself, and others; or creches; or mother's groups; or meals for the needy. It isn't about gathering to try to understand how best to live a good life; or singing songs and listening to ancient wisdom. I can do all of these things, but because I do not believe in the supernatural I cannot be a Christian - is any Christian going to disagree with this?

 

The fact, there is not one jot of evidence for all these supernatural claims (heck the writers of the bible believed they could name the angels, do you really believe that?), and actually lots of evidence that all the claims of humanity's divine spark are just our self centred arrogance, is beside the point - faith we are told is the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen, and to be a Christian you have to have faith.

 

That to me is an abnegation of evidence and reasoning, something Christianity (and Islam at least of the other religions) discourages as they may cause doubt and hence damnation.

 

If people want to evangelize these beliefs they can, if they want to say their sermons, write to newspapers and politicians, I agree, if they wish to stand for office, then do so. But must they bring these beliefs into a council meeting, overshadowing the most mundane domestic affairs of bins and planning applications with supernatural appeals.

 

This is not the place for such things. The supernatural looking into people's hearts has no role here - it is about community, helping, organizing and spending tax payers money as wisely as possible. These mundane things, which both the religious and non religious are involved with everyday are important to this world. What a supernatural being thinks happens in your heart while doing this is irrelevent.

[Endovelicus]

Is that point a general dig at atheists because I'm not quite seeing the connection with council meeting prayers. Is there one apart from the points alleged atheists have been making on this thread and the fact that he is a famous atheist? Just wondered.

 

If you click on the link, you'll find the report goes on to be inclusive of that.

[ballaughbiker]

I can see that but still can't see the relevance to what we have been discussing. The writer goes on to say

 

" the atheist army is led by an embarrassingly feeble general. The arrogance and intolerance of the atheists, exemplified by Prof Dawkins, is their Achilles’ heel"

 

Aetheist army? Led by an embarrassingly feeble general? FFS this "story" could have come from the Daily Sport! It's drivel!

[King Lear]

Are you glad God is looking into this child's heart to see if he believes Jesus is his saviour?

Wonder what would happen if he'd hurled insults at a missionary before the famine stuck - remember Elisha and the bears - lovely bit of biblical morality:

 

2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

2:24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

[quilp]

Is that point a general dig at atheists because I'm not quite seeing the connection with council meeting prayers. Is there one apart from the points alleged atheists have been making on this thread and the fact that he is a famous atheist? Just wondered.

This is a dig at Atheists, no doubt. I could sense the gloating-delight at Dawkins' alleged gaff. Many believers have a problem with Dawkins and call him arrogant and self-serving. Dickie's problem is his anger and frustration over the preference for supernaturalistic belief over reason in the modern world and all the associated misery it brings with it. He has the ability to present his argument for non-belief with clarity and in terms that ordinary people can understand. This is a powerful dogma in itself and has the ability to shake the tree of belief of those fence-sitters who quietly wish for a god-free existence, so tenuous is their grip of faith. The religious hierachy realise this and with falling attendances, rising-secularity/disbelief etc., he's portrayed as dangerous and labelled as intolerant, thus all the death-threats he gets from christian and islamic fundamentalists alike.

 

That's the only connection with this thread.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

http://www.telegraph...-for-words.html

 

DAWKINS LOST FOR WORDS!

I'm not exactly religious but, having been lucky enough to hear this, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed hearing that arrogant sod squirm so helplessly!

 

 

Edited to add that the title of Dawkins' personal bible is: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

What seems to be happening and also what you think is that there is some comparison to be made. You are wrong.

 

Not knowing the New Testament is NOT the same as missing out the title of a book related to evolution.

 

Why? Well the difference is that the Christian belief rests entirely on the contents of the Bible. If people don’t know their Bible, then they really can’t rely on its teaching and content to reinforce their belief.

The characters, behaviours, commandments of the Christian God are given in the Bible. Unless a person has had personal revelation the reasons for their faith look even more poor.

They can still call themselves a Christian though and I would accept that someone is a Christian if they say they are, but the less they know about the Bible, the more I would question their affinity and identity with Christian doctrine and the beliefs of other adherents.

How can they claim the Christian God is loving? That Jesus was a good person or all other sorts of matters when all they have is what others have said?

 

On the other hand, the theory of evolution really on far, far more than Origin of Species. There is lots of literature on the theory and much evidence that supports the theory.

I haven’t read the Origin of Species, but I have been taught about the theory and recognise that there is scientific evidence that has been peer reviewed. I don’t need to have read that book to think that evolution occurs.

 

In any case, who cares what full TITLE of the book is. And where evolution to be demonstrated to be completely false. It wouldn't necessarily mean that there is a God and certainly wouldn't mean that Christianity is the truth.

 

And yes, Dawkins is arrogant. But then, in the face of something so stupendously absurd as Christianity where atheists know that it is bullshit, there is going to be arrogance shown.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

 

What is the issue - what is a Christian.

Not for me nor you to decide. Anyone who claims to be a Christian is a Christian in my eyes. If there are differences in beliefs or different understandings of the Christian God then that's for Christians to work on. It's not my place to decide.