Heaven Is a Fairy Tale Says Physicist Stephen Hawking

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  • Robert
    replied
    Blimey, Kent Walton will be turning in his grave.

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  • Zodiac
    replied
    Originally posted by Robert View Post
    Does this make god Big Daddy?
    Not quite Robert, but it defo makes him "The Daddy"!!! Here he is sorting out out Lucifer and his posse during the infamous "War in Heaven"!!!



    Best wishes,

    Zodiac.

    P.S. Yes, I was, as per usual, on the losing side in that one... again!!!!

    Leave a comment:


  • Robert
    replied
    Ah yeah....won the vacant welterweight title against Jacob.

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  • Natalie Severn
    replied
    No Robert it makes him puff the magic dragon.

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  • Robert
    replied
    Does this make god Big Daddy?

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  • Natalie Severn
    replied
    Originally posted by Zodiac View Post
    Surely the most civilized, and indeed conclusive, debate on the whole question of the existence/non-existence of God!!!



    Best wishes,

    Zodiac.

    Thankyou Zodiac.That looks like a small but elite group of complete barm pots.

    Leave a comment:


  • Zodiac
    replied
    Surely the most civilized, and indeed conclusive, debate on the whole question of the existence/non-existence of God!!!



    Best wishes,

    Zodiac.

    Leave a comment:


  • Magpie
    replied
    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    What religion prompted Stalin to round up hundreds of thousands of Jews filling mass graves throughout the forests of Russia? Or told Hitler to exterminate 10 million human beings in less than 10 years?
    Well, Stalin spent several years in a seminary training to become a priest.

    As for the Nazis, it's an open secret that the Nazi Party was built on a religious template with the express intention of creating a new religion.


    What monarch blew up a church filled with black school girls?
    That would be Vlad Tepes.

    Well, sure they weren't black, and they weren't schoolgirls, but surely you aren't going to quibble about details like that.

    Leave a comment:


  • Magpie
    replied
    Originally posted by johns View Post
    A huge cathedral gets build while the local populace starve and live in hovel.
    With respect, but cathedral building was a boon to any community in which it took place. Even a small cathedral provided years of work (and therefore money) to the local populace. It provided rare opportunities for young people to enter a skilled trade and provided already skilled workers one of the only venues to practice their trade. Once built, a cathedral continued to bring wealth and employment to a community because a community with a catheral formed the nucleus of a commercial centre.

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  • Errata
    replied
    Originally posted by johns View Post
    It does matter to me.

    I would hate it if there was a god... and I thought of all the nonsense that went on in the world and he (gotta be a bloke) stood by and did nothing while innocent folk died for no reason.
    Well thats the great caveat of any religion isn't it? My Rabbi told me that every religion was formed to answer three questions, and to specifically not answer a fourth.

    1.Why are we here?
    2.What happens to us after we die?
    3.After I have done everything humanly possible, what else can be done to make my life better?

    and then of course 4: Why do bad things happen to good people?

    "the Lord works in mysterious ways" "God loved him so much, he called him early" There's even a whole biblical insert on a guy named Job for this.

    And if you're gonna believe in a god of some kind, you have to resolve that one for yourself. And if you aren't going to believe in a god, well, you actually still have to resolve that one for yourself. Sh*t Happens is a good one, but not terribly comforting in a time of distress. Personally I would word it differently.

    But I will say this. The majority of people I know who are atheists (and that's most people I know) make their argument against one specific kind of god. The god of the Christian bible. An all knowing, all loving, all powerful god. And I agree with them that there is no evidence that bears out the existence of this kind of god. No one in my religion told me G-d was like this. Now clearly, my religion is not in the majority. I don't think it's even in the top 10. But if most people are exposed to Christian god, and do not believe in that god, I hate saying that that person is an atheist. There are other gods out there, other archetypes. Some are terribly believable. But very few people can accept a god that is not their fathers.

    It is an odd thing to say "I do not believe in the Christian god, therefore I am an atheist." That is exactly like saying "I do not like oranges, therefore I will eat no fruit." But that IS how it works. If you don't like oranges, you'll try a pineapple, or a banana. If you don't like the Christian god, thats it. Game over. And I don't know why. I'm not proposing that you atheists should give another god a try, I just think its fascinating how this works.

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  • johns
    replied
    Originally posted by Robert View Post
    Since these discussions on religion tend to generate heat, it might be worth asking everyone :

    Does it matter to you whether or not there is/is not a god? And if so, why does it matter to you?
    It does matter to me.

    I would hate it if there was a god... and I thought of all the nonsense that went on in the world and he (gotta be a bloke) stood by and did nothing while innocent folk died for no reason.

    Leave a comment:


  • johns
    replied
    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    What religion prompted Stalin to round up hundreds of thousands of Jews filling mass graves throughout the forests of Russia? Or told Hitler to exterminate 10 million human beings in less than 10 years?
    None. Unless Communism and fascism are regarded as religions... some would say they are but they're not in the traditional sense.

    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    What monarch blew up a church filled with black school girls?
    None. I bet some of them would have done given half a chance, in the same way that monarchs of olde would send armies across the seas and rob what wasn't theirs and slaughter the locals in the process.


    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    What god mandated global warming?
    None. But it sure is warm where "he" would send us unless we obey his orders.


    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    And powerful men would stand up and say, in exchange for a part of your harvest, I will make it so you can farm full time. I will fight your battles. I will repel the raiders. I will give you a safe place to hide, I will do what I can to let you concentrate on this one thing.
    And those powerful men did do these things... and then not let Joe Schlub have a say in who the next "powerful man" would be.


    Originally posted by Errata View Post
    Religion has helped and it has harmed.
    Well we'll just have to disagree on this... My own personal opinion is that not 1 single atom of good has ever come out of any religion. A huge cathedral gets build while the local populace starve and live in hovels... Threatening to send folk to hell unless they obey... and so on and so forth..

    I'm done.

    Leave a comment:


  • babybird67
    replied
    hi Jonathan

    Originally posted by Jonathan H View Post
    I belong to a small, yet far flung group called the League of Existentialist Neo-Pagans, and the name is meant to be both serious and playful.

    It is not a religion or a cult, because, as we like to say, it does not seek tax exempt status, and never will.

    It is more like the Masons, although I realize that for some people that analogy is a negative one.

    Inspired by Buddhism, we believe in Reincarnation -- but you cannot recall past lives under dodgy hypnosis. You just have the reassurance that you were, and are, and will be again, and again.

    Inspired by the historical Jesus (eg. he was an Apocalyptic prophet killed by a catapult) we believe in service and sacrifice.

    We believe that all religions are a projection of the human imagination and that is why we choose to worship the Greco-pagan goddess Athena, who encourages us to be brave doers (eg. nothing to do with the people who are in forests practicing white magic or something?) Nor is it some leftist front, as by my count there are more Tories than not in my chapter, at least.

    Athena, Buddha, and Jesus: The LXN.

    If you have never heard of us that is because we are not into divine hustling, door by door, and not because we are elitist -- but rather because it is the the height of bad manners to bother people in their own abode with pompous prognostications.
    Do you have any leaflets? I might like to join you!

    Leave a comment:


  • The Good Michael
    replied
    I have formed a similar group. It is called the Brewmads. It is a group of people dedicated to not belonging to any groups because of exclusion, accidentally or intentionally, caused by belonging to something. We are all travellers, although some travellers are stationary, who can discuss anything over a real ale without killing each other and without forcing our viewpoints on anyone, unless they belong to groups that we don't like (all of them pretty much). So far, no one has passed the requirements to be in this group because if someone else joined other than me, it would be truly a group and force us to abandon our rules, which don't really exist except as realized over the drinking of the aforementioned ale.

    The naysayers out there might suggest that by belonging to this forum that I have already threatened the non-rules. By using an opposite name of 'good' from my true nature of 'whatever', I feel I have remained true to the charter. THe good thing is that only group Brewmad members can pass judgment. So far, I'm doing OK.

    Mike

    Leave a comment:


  • Jonathan H
    replied
    Lxn

    I belong to a small, yet far flung group called the League of Existentialist Neo-Pagans, and the name is meant to be both serious and playful.

    It is not a religion or a cult, because, as we like to say, it does not seek tax exempt status, and never will.

    It is more like the Masons, although I realize that for some people that analogy is a negative one.

    Inspired by Buddhism, we believe in Reincarnation -- but you cannot recall past lives under dodgy hypnosis. You just have the reassurance that you were, and are, and will be again, and again.

    Inspired by the historical Jesus (eg. he was an Apocalyptic prophet killed by a catapult) we believe in service and sacrifice.

    We believe that all religions are a projection of the human imagination and that is why we choose to worship the Greco-pagan goddess Athena, who encourages us to be brave doers (eg. nothing to do with the people who are in forests practicing white magic or something?) Nor is it some leftist front, as by my count there are more Tories than not in my chapter, at least.

    Athena, Buddha, and Jesus: The LXN.

    If you have never heard of us that is because we are not into divine hustling, door by door, and not because we are elitist -- but rather because it is the the height of bad manners to bother people in their own abode with pompous prognostications.

    Leave a comment:

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