The Hazards of Belief

MrPudding

Is it just me or is it getting a bit silly now...?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-17181861

MrP

kylith

MrPudding wrote: »

Is it just me or is it getting a bit silly now...?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-17181861

MrP

"Gatwick Airport said there was no legal requirement to remove religious headwear to establish identity in airport security areas, "

Seriously? I can't bring a bottle of water through in case I use it to blow up the plane, but some people don't even have to prove that they are who they say they are just because of their religion?

Surely that can't be proper?

recedite

There is far too much "self-policing" going on within the different "communities" living in the UK, particularly England. The muslim security personnel obviously resented it when Fireman Sam stepped out of his box and into what they considered was their realm; ie "muslim business".

robindch

Nodin wrote: »

Meanwhile, at HQ, its Synods, Angry African Bishops, not getting the two thirds majority needed - everything seems to have gone CoE.

The Empire Strikes Back:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/will-homosexuals-have-to-wait-as-long-as-galileo-for-papal-approval-1.1982299

Irish Times wrote:

Just about the most remarkable Vatican story your Rome correspondent ever covered came back in October 1992. It concerned a speech that Pope John Paul II made to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, in which, 350 years late, he publicly “pardoned” Galileo Galilei, the so-called father of modern science, condemned as a heretic by the Vatican in 1633.
Galileo and his telescope came to mind earlier this month as an intensely dramatic Vatican Synod on the Family concluded two weeks of often “lively” debate. One is tempted to ask: will gays and lesbians have to wait 350 years before the Holy See stops teaching that the homosexual tendency is “an objective disorder”? In Galileo’s time, it was a “heresy” to suggest that it was the earth which revolves around the sun and not vice-versa. The Inquisition called on Galileo to “abjure, curse and detest” his views. It put his works on the Index of banned books and, of course, confined him to house arrest for the last eight years of his life. Even allowing for all the political aspects of Galileo’s trial, it is probable that the inquisitor cardinals who condemned him believed they were doing the right thing. Doubtless they felt they were defending “non-negotiable values”, the “deposit of faith”, the “magisterium”, and so on. The problem for them was that John Paul II moved the goalposts, admittedly 350 years later.

The comparison with Galileo is probably a bit unfair, but it makes the point. At the end of a synod that appeared to take three steps forward and then two back, a number of intriguing questions ask themselves. Firstly, does the watered down, final Relatio represent a failure on the part of some synod fathers to “grasp the signs of the times”, as urged by Pope Francis himself? Secondly, do the synod tensions indicate a serious divergence of opinion between Francis and a minority of conservative bishops? Given that the synod process has arrived only at the halfway point, such questions may seem premature. Many commentators have, correctly, pointed out that the most important aspect of the synod was not the wording of the final Relatio but rather that the assembly had been marked by an unprecedentedly real and, to a certain extent, transparent debate. It was not so much the conclusions (or not) arrived at, but rather the fact that certain issues (homosexuality, communion for divorced) had been discussed at all. When South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier admitted that the mid-synod Relatio – the one that apparently indicated a new openness to homosexuals – had taken him by surprise, he had a point. In most previous synods, this mid-synod Relatio was so boring and unenlightening that it was generally ignored, certainly by the media.

Nobody was ignoring it this time and, for that, Pope Francis can take the credit. As for grasping “the signs of the times”, we will have to wait until the Pope make his post-synodal apostolic exhortation after next October’s synod to understand just what “signs” he means. Nonetheless, one is entitled to ask if, for the time being, all the cardinals and bishops are on the same page as Francis. The positions of conservative cardinals Müller, Pell and Burke in favour of current church teaching (in relation to communion for the divorced) have been well documented, but even on the very last day of the synod, another cardinal, the Guinean Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Cor Unum Pontifical Council, joined the protest, this time on homosexuality.

In an interview with the Catholic News Agency, he insisted that “homosexual behaviour and homosexual unions are grave deviations of sexuality” and argued that the push for homosexual unions represents part of “a new ideology of evil”. This is hardly a comment with the Francis who asks: “Who am I to judge?” The tea-leaf-reading school of Vatican journalism has also read a lot into the fact that neither Cardinal Müller nor Cardinal Burke saluted the Pope after last Sunday’s synod-closing mass. That same school points out, too, that Burke will shortly be removed from his position as prefect of the Apostolic Signature, while Müller may be moved from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

Furthermore, it has been reported, in the Italian media, that during the synod a number of concerned synod fathers dropped by to see Pope Emeritus Benedict, only to be told firmly that he was “Not The Pope”. Benedict allegedly sent a note to Francis immediately after this encounter, presumably to keep the record straight. Time will tell what all this means, if anything. One suspects that between now and next October, the various debates will continue to rage, publicly and privately.

Nodin

"Eight Egyptian men were sentenced to three years in jail on Saturday on charges of spreading indecent images and inciting debauchery after they appeared in an online video purporting to show the country’s first gay marriage ceremony."
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/eight-men-jailed-in-egypt-for-gay-marriage-video-1.1985025

Harsh stuff.

robindch

PopePalpatine

I was expecting his name to be a version of James, though.

MrPudding

robindch wrote: »

My previous post in response to this has been deleted, which I think is harsh, but that's mods for you, so powers hungry.

Perhaps I might get away with saying this article reminds me of someone that we see round here occasionally that pretty much thinks exactly like this. On reflection, there are actually a few people that this could actually be, interestingly, all kind of religious and dismissive of evidence that does not suit their worldview.

And he really does look like a smug bastard. The level of smugness that can only come from the belief that of the thousands of magical beings that humans have believed over time yours is the right one, and he created an entire universe just for you.

MrP

PopePalpatine

MrPudding wrote: »

Perhaps I might get away with saying this article reminds me of someone that we see round here occasionally that pretty much thinks exactly like this.

If you and I are thinking of the same "certain someone", I think the first post of his that I ever came across was some paranoia-strewn gombeenery about a single observation of his when he saw a few children with either single or same-sex parents.

MrPudding

PopePalpatine wrote: »

If you and I are thinking of the same "certain someone", I think the first post of his that I ever came across was some paranoia-strewn gombeenery about a single observation of his when he saw a few children with either single or same-sex parents.

Ha. That's the one.

MrP

robindch

Gentlefolks, gentlefolks, please do calm down

MrPudding

robindch wrote: »

Gentlefolks, gentlefolks, please do calm down

Perfectly calm. 😀

MrP

Hotblack Desiato

Meant to post this a couple of days ago...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/halloween-s-scary-fairies-get-thumbs-down-from-exorcists-1.1984184

It is not just in Ireland that Halloween has lost the run of itself. So popular has it become across the world that earlier this week the Vatican’s first official conference of exorcists felt it necessary to call for it to be banned because it was causing a spike in occult activity.

Fr Aldo Buonaiuto, a spokesman for the International Association of Exorcists suggested it was the “antechamber to something much more dangerous” than harmless dressing up and bobbing for apples.

He said the association’s emergency number gets as many as 40 calls a day in the week leading up to Halloween, with most coming from parents concerned their children have become involved in the supernatural.

“Many say Halloween is a simple carnival, but in fact there is nothing innocent or fun about it,” Fr Buonaiuto said.

What's their emergency number? 666?

recedite

Bit of a spiel on the whole Halloween thing here.
It only ever had a thin veneer of Christianity anyway.

robindch

A mob lynched a christian couple in Pakistan, then burned their bodies. Their crime was to have been accused of "desecration of the holy koran".

Has there been any condemnation of this by any mainstream islamic groups?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29893809

BBC wrote:

A Christian couple in Pakistan have been beaten to death by an angry crowd after being accused of desecrating a Koran, police say. Their bodies were burned at the brick kiln where they worked in the town of Kot Radha Kishan in Punjab province. Police identified the victims only as Shama and Shehzad, AFP reports.

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue and critics argue the laws are often misused to settle personal scores and that minorities are unfairly targeted. "Yesterday an incident of desecration of the holy Koran took place in the area and today the mob first beat the couple and later set their bodies on fire at a brick kiln," local police station official Bin Yameen told the AFP news agency.

A security official told the BBC that local police had tried to save the couple, but they were outnumbered and attacked by the angry crowd. Senior police officials and government ministers have now arrived there to investigate the killings. In May gunmen in the city of Multan shot dead a lawyer, Rashid Rehma, who had been defending a university lecturer accused of blasphemy.

And last month a Pakistani court upheld the death penalty for Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy in 2010 - a case which sparked a global outcry. Since the 1990s, scores of Christians have been found guilty of desecrating the Koran or of blasphemy. While most of them have been sentenced to death by the lower courts, many sentences have been overturned due to lack of evidence.

However, correspondents say even the mere accusation of blasphemy is enough to make someone a target for hardliners. Muslims constitute a majority of those prosecuted, followed by minority Ahmadis.

robindch

Lawrence Krauss says that religion could be gone in a generation:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/cosmologist_lawrence_krauss_religion_could_be_largely_gone_in_a_generation

Salon wrote:

Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss believes that in a generation religion could disappear. Earlier this year the theoretical physicist, who teamed up with Richard Dawkins to create the documentary “The Unbelievers,” spoke at the Victorian Skeptics Cafe. There he was asked what he thought about religion being taught in schools; the video of the response was uploaded on Monday to YouTube by user Adam Ford.

“What we need to do is present comparative religion as a bunch of interesting historical anecdotes, and show the silly reasons why they did what they did,” Krauss said on the topic of teaching comparative religion. “People say, ‘Well, religion has been around since the dawn of man. You’ll never change that,’” Krauss stated. “This issue of gay marriage, it is going to go away, because if you’re a a child, a 13-year-old, they can’t understand what the issue is,” he continued. ”It’s gone. One generation is all it takes.”

“So, I can tell you a generation ago people said there is no way people would allow gay marriage, and slavery — essentially — [gone in] a generation; we got rid of it,” Krauss stated. “Change is always one generation away. So if we can plant the seeds of doubt in our children, religion will go away in a generation, or at least largely go away. And that’s what I think we have an obligation to do.” Krauss also discussed the way that critical thinking should be taught in schools — not teaching logic in the abstract but having children confront their own misconceptions. He also stated that teachers and parents should instill curiosity and doubt in their children, and not what to learn but train them how to think.

In 2013 Krauss caused a bit of a stir when he remarked that the teaching of creationism in schools was tantamount to mild child abuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb_vYxIyzrI

Brian Shanahan

robindch wrote: »

Lawrence Krauss says that religion could be gone in a generation:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/cosmologist_lawrence_krauss_religion_could_be_largely_gone_in_a_generation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb_vYxIyzrI

He's being a bit optomistic. Yes religion is on the decline, and quite a sharp one at that, enough that in the more well educated areas it will be a minority within a generation. But there are enough stupid and maleducated (the second group largely through no fault of their own) people out there that religion will be around for a long while yet.

I honestly think it'd take something really big, like alien contact, to kill off religion.

Nodin

A 'subway preacher' in the same carriage with a lady lacking time for his shite....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiaIBf5-VvA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBa11q9hGTw

(sorry for the TMZ link)

TheChizler

Nodin wrote: »

A 'subway preacher' in the same carriage with a lady lacking time for his shite....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBa11q9hGTw

(sorry for the TMZ link)

Go Big Boo!

Nodin

TheChizler wrote: »

Go Big Boo!

I've only seen the first episode of the first series, but plan to get around to it eventually.

robindch

Half Of Britons Say Religion Does More Harm Than Good, And Atheists Can Be Just As Moral

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/03/religion-beyond-belief_n_6094442.html

HufffPo wrote:

More than half of Britons believe that religion does more harm than good, with less than a quarter believing faith is a force for good, the Huffington Post UK can reveal today. Even 20% of British people who described themselves as being 'very religious' said religion was harmful to society, and a quarter of said atheists were more likely to be moral individuals than religious people.

The exclusive poll for the HuffPost UK reveals that just 8% of Britons describe themselves as very religious, with more than 60% saying they were not religious at all. The eye-opening survey, that will reopen debate over the role and worth of religion to British society, found of the 'non-religious' people polled, more than 60% said they thought religion caused more problems than it solved.

The poll shows that more people believe being an atheist is more likely to make you a good person than being religious. In fact, one in eight Britons said atheists tend to be more moral, compared to just 6% who say atheists are less moral, challenging widely held beliefs that religion is one of the last remaining bastions of British morality.

The pioneering study results come as HuffPost UK launches Beyond Belief, a groundbreaking series on the fearless Britons who've have used their faith to create positive change within their religion. Other major findings revealed:

• Of the 2,004 people surveyed in the HuffPost/Survation poll, 56% described themselves as Christian, 2.5% were Muslim, 1% were Jewish and the remainder were of another faith or none
• The majority of Brits believe religion is not more likely to make you a moral person. More than 55% of those surveyed said that atheists are just as likely to be moral people than religious people
• Young people are actually more likely to have a positive view of religion. Around 30% of 18-24 year old believe religion does more good than harm, compared to just 19% of 55-64 year-olds

The strong evidence of a British society which is largely secular and multicultural has led to some call for a rethink of the role of religion in public life. Linda Woodhead, professor of the sociology of religion at Lancaster University, said it was "striking" to see the number of people professing no religion. "This confirms something I’ve found in my own surveys and which leads me to conclude that religion has become a ‘toxic brand’ in the UK," she told HuffPost UK. "What we are seeing is not a complete rejection of faith, belief in the divine, or spirituality, though there is some to that, but of institutional religion in the historic forms which are familiar to people.

Woodhead said the reasons for a retreat from religion are "numerous", from sex scandals involving Catholic priests and rabbis, to conflict in the Middle East and Islamist terror attack. "I’d add religious leaderships’ drift away from the liberal values, equality, tolerance, diversity, [which is] embraced by many of their own followers and often championed by non-religious and atheist people more forcefully," she said. "This survey just confirms what we know is the common sense of people in Britain today - that whether you are religious or not has very little to do with your morality," said Andrew Copson chief executive of the British Humanist Association.

[...]

Mike747

Black Israelites harassing a feminist woman (NSW)

Nodin

Mike747 wrote: »

Black Israelites harassing a feminist woman (NSW)

Assholes harassing each other, tbh. Funny when yer woman was hauled off though.

MrPudding

Nodin wrote: »

Assholes harassing each other, tbh. Funny when yer woman was hauled off though.

Struggling to feel sorry for either side, to be honest.

MrP

robindch

Freaky interview with a brainwashed 13-year old IS wannabe and his imbecile mother:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29921816

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-29950854

Pupils in England will have to study two faiths under government proposals for a new "more academically rigorous" religious studies GCSE.

The aim is to ensure pupils have a strong understanding of the central role of religion on British culture, says the government.

Judging by that survey above in Robin's post, this supposed 'central role' is nothing more than either very outdated or very wishful thinking.

Under the proposals, pupils will study "the beliefs, teachings and sources of wisdom" of at least two religions for the first half of their GCSE.

The second half of the syllabus will allow pupils to study one or both in depth: looking at religious practice, religious texts and how faiths tackle philosophical and ethical issues.

Students may choose from Buddhism, Christianity, Catholic Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Sikhism.

The option to study a humanist or non-religious world view is not included in this list, provoking criticism from groups including the British Humanist Association and the Religious Education Council (REC) of England and Wales.

No surprise there.

recedite

Mike747 wrote: »

Black Israelites harassing a feminist woman (NSW)

I think that woman may have dived, for extra effect.
These guys are not Jews BTW, here's some interesting snippets about them, including this;

Most Hebrew Israelites believe that being an Israelite is not a religion but a nationality and a lifestyle

Having a badass attitude seems to be an important part of being a Black Hebrew Israelite.
'Cos some people just aren't cut out to be laid-back Rastafarians

robindch

Bishop of Truro says Church of England has 'six years'

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-29977610

BBC wrote:

The Bishop of Truro has said the Church of England has only "five or six years" to save itself. The Right Reverend Tim Thornton said "radical changes" were needed to halt a "steady decline". Bishop Thornton previously said the Church of England would struggle to exist in 10 years.

Speaking on Radio Cornwall, he said: "I'd been saying that for a while now so I think we have to come down and say it's five or six years." Bishop Thornton said analysis of attendance figures was "all showing one thing". He said: "I fear that we are on a steady decline at the moment."

The Diocese of Truro voted on 8 November 2014 for a 28% increase in the amount of money it needs from local churchgoers to reduce a £1.2m deficit over the next year.

robindch

A head teacher in the UK has to be escorted by police, allegedly, after a parents' meeting on the topic of diversity:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/11/primary-school-headteacher-attacked-fighting-homophobia

Oddly, the Society for the Protection of the Unbodrn Child (SPUC for those with long memories) is involved...

Vivisectus

At least there is ONE cheerful part to that article:

Later the children, who’ve already learned not just about same-sex families but also single-parent and adoptive ones, settle down to draw a family of their choosing. Amarah draws two mummies and a baby, while her friend Maysa goes for two daddies. Why have they picked those? “Because we like them,” says Maysa. “And they’re easy.”

That really made me laugh.