most people I’ve spoken to didn’t realise the SRT wasn’t a charity and that her folks ran the UK operation.

…because I think the SRT story’s consistently drowned out by the religion thing, which IMO is exactly what the SRT thrives upon.

No, it really isn’t. The existence of things always requires more evidence than their non-existence. This can be seen in the way that you don’t keep ducking to avoid obstacles that aren’t there.

Since Gary doesn’t want us fighting here, I’ve answered Alex at my blog.

There is absolutely none. That’s why they have to have ‘faith’

>The belief in a higher power and the morality that that brings has had an overall positive effect on the majority of people.

Atheists are just as (and in some cases, more) moral as others, and they aren’t doing because of the promise of some kind of reward at the end of their lives. Morals are innate and (IMO) are part of our evolutionary make-up, the social group that doesn’t lie, cheat, steal or murder tends to last longer – survival of the fittest.

I’ll finish up with a nice quote from Albert himself –

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.”

*Not looking* My internet connection was down all day so I’ve only just read this. ;-)

>>Einstein was probably an atheist, certainly an agnostic, NOT a believer.

Einstein definately wasn’t an atheist or an agnostic. He didn’t believe in a big white-bearded man or such like and I don’t think he agreed with any particular religion, but he definitely believed in something. A quick google sums it up quite well:-

“Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity of marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world on thought. Individual existence impress him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church.

It is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest reason for scientific research.”

There are a number of scientists who are studying some of the really heavy physics stuff, like string theory and so on, who, instead of finding more evidence in the non-existence of some higher power, keep finding new evidence that the universe is more ordered than could be possible by chance.

Atheism is just as much based on faith than any other religion. There is a whole load of evidence to disprove a god but there is an awful lot of evidence the other way.

>>Again I say, the world would be a far better place without religion of any kind.

I don’t know if that is true. The belief in a higher power and the morality that that brings has had an overall positive effect on the majority of people. However, I think that the world would be much better off if some of the people that claim to be religious didn’t try to twist it to their own ends. If some of the leaders of these religious groups (at all levels) started to act like their holy books tell them and preach peace and harmony. Christianity and Islam both preach forgiveness and humility for example.

Going back to Gary’s fight flag waving – everyone should obviously now set an example and embrace the opposing views presented here and gracefully admit that there are many opinions all of equal validity.

Going back on-topic for a sec, most people I’ve spoken to didn’t realise the SRT wasn’t a charity and that her folks ran the UK operation.

I would hope by people realising for themselves what a world of shite religious belief is.

>But you think Socrates was infantile.

I didn’t say that anywhere. Anyway, anyone who believed in the immortality of the ‘soul’, that he was picked by the gods, and that being ‘morally upright’ was something bestowed by the ‘gods’ (thanks, The Internet!) seems pretty backwards to me.

He may have been seen as one of the greatest thinkers *of his time* but a lot of his philosophies seem laughable to us now, living in a world that is far more enlightened than his.

>here are a few examples of things given to us by religious thinkers: the end of slavery; musical notation; the telegraph; Morse code; the sciences of geodesy and topology; the contraceptive pill (one third of the team behind it was a devout Catholic); clocks; that forgiveness is better than reprisal; the way to make pacifist resistance against a violent enemy actually work; freedom of speech; the separation of church and state; Special and General Relativity; algebra

What an absolute non-argument!! The development of these things were all entirely unrelated to the religious beliefs of the men and women behind them!

Let’s have a look at some of those…..

>the end of slavery

A system endorsed by the Church for hundreds upon hundreds of years, even the ‘god’ of the Bible seemed to be pro-slavery!!

>musical notation

Some of which was banned, for being ‘demonic’. And do you know something about the beliefs of the writers of the earliest known representation of musical scores? Cos I’m not sure I do 4000 years later….

>the sciences of geodesy and topology

Let us not forget the Church preaching that the world was flat, that the Sun orbits us…..oh, and torturing and killing people who didn’t agree. And the Bible claims the Earth is only just over 6000 years old.

>Special and General Relativity

Einstein was probably an atheist, certainly an agnostic, NOT a believer.

>the contraceptive pill

….which many churches preach is a mortal sin to use.

>(one third of the team behind it was a devout Catholic)

…who must have been not so devout if he was involved in something that was an abomination in the eyes of his ‘lord’

Your argument is the kind of nonsense trotted out by religious apologists all around the world, conveniently ignoring both the masses of non-believers who have done far more for us, and the context of the times a lot of great thinkers have lived through (times where, in some cases, not expressing a faith was tantamount to suicide)

>To capitalise “God” is, in fact, to obey the rules of English grammar, because it’s a proper noun. I don’t believe in Zeus, Jupiter, or Odin, but all their names are capitalised

God the word used to describe a thing, it’s not ‘his’ name (look instead at Yahweh if that’s what you fancy doing). To capitalise ‘god’ makes no more sense to me than capitalising ‘chair’ or ‘man skirt’.

Zeus, Jupiter and Odin were all ‘gods’, but they weren’t *named* ‘God’.

>A lot of people (I’m not one of them) suffer years of stress and unhappiness until they join a religion that suits them. Their experiences matter every bit as much as yours or mine.

Sadly they are seeking comfort in lies and childish mysticism.

Again I say, the world would be a far better place without religion of any kind.

To capitalise “God” is, in fact, to obey the rules of English grammar, because it’s a proper noun. I don’t believe in Zeus, Jupiter, or Odin, but all their names are capitalised, just like “Alex”, “Wednesday”, and “Mothercare”.

I’d agree with you about capitalising “He” and “Him”, though.

> Personally I want to see ALL religion wiped from the face of the Earth.

Yeah, but by reasoned debate or by state fiat? We’ve seen what happens in states powerful enough to ban religion. It’s not good.

> It’s a poisonous non-thinking that has kept our species in a state of infantism for far too long.

Just off the top of my head, here are a few examples of things given to us by religious thinkers: the end of slavery; musical notation; the telegraph; Morse code; the sciences of geodesy and topology; the contraceptive pill (one third of the team behind it was a devout Catholic); clocks; that forgiveness is better than reprisal; the way to make pacifist resistance against a violent enemy actually work; freedom of speech; the separation of church and state; Special and General Relativity; algebra. It makes no more sense to deny the great good done by religions over the years than it does to brush all their evils under the carpet. I might add that the first eight of those examples weren’t even just brought about by clever or good men who happened to be religious, but were developed specifically for religious reasons.

But you think Socrates was infantile.

> I suffered years of stress and unhappiness because of the way my parents insisted I go to their church

A lot of people (I’m not one of them) suffer years of stress and unhappiness until they join a religion that suits them. Their experiences matter every bit as much as yours or mine.

Personally I want to see ALL religion wiped from the face of the Earth. It’s a poisonous non-thinking that has kept our species in a state of infantism for far too long. Teaching it in schools, or to children in any shape or form is tantamount to child abuse IMO. I suffered years of stress and unhappiness because of the way my parents insisted I go to their church and it has only been comparatively recently that I’ve been able to wake up on a Sunday morning without a feeling of dread in my gut.

>Would you capitalise “Gandalf”

Yes, because that’s the name of a fictional character in a book, not a supernatural being that million across the world believe in (and want to make me believe in) and die for. To capitalise ‘god’ is to give ‘him’ a level of respect, to put ‘him’ above all the other (non-existent) gods, that ‘he’ doesn’t deserve.

>and let people who don’t like the codes go to different schools.

As a parent with an 11 year old who recently got straight fives in his sats (putting him in the top 2 in his year) yet has still been turned down for his first 3 schools of choice I feel I should point out that ‘go[ing] to different schools’ isn’t usually an option.

The trouble with that is that new religious traditions keep popping up. Someone with a confrontational bent — such as Shabina Begum’s brother or Lydia Playfoot’s parents — can always manufacture more discrimination in order to try to establish the precedent that the state must bow to the will of their religion. Now, I’m not a statist, but that’s because I want the state’s authority diminished, not passed to a religion, which would be even worse.

And state-funded schools should discriminate — towards the culture of the host nation. So, for example, if I went to school in Argentina, I’d expect to learn more about the history of Spanish Colonialism than the Tudors — that is discriminatory, of course, and it’s also entirely fair. One of the many aspects of British culture is that hiding your face behind a mask in public is antisocial, untrustworthy, suspicious, and usually the behaviour of criminals. Another aspect is that British schools traditionally have strict uniform codes and accept no excuses for breaches thereof. British schools should be teaching their pupils both those things.

I don’t really know what I think about that, to be honest. On the one hand I think schools should be able to set whatever rules they want, no matter how daft – eg skirts of a certain length, heels no higher than Xcm, etc, and of course girls are subject to similar rules. Ho ho ho – but then you’re up against the problem that those rules can be discriminatory – so for example if a religion says you must wear X and must never wear Y, and the school says you cannot wear X and you must wear Y, that’s a pretty efficient way of excluding people. I don’t think that’s appropriate for state-funded schools, and I’m not sure what I think about private ones.

Certainly faith schools of any form make me uneasy. Although of course there’s absolutely no connection between Scotland having separate schooling for different kinds of Christianity and Scotland’s problem of sectarianism. Oh no.

Religion in schools is a great big can o’worms, though. Personally I think its only place is in history, political classes and perhaps general religious awareness classes (as opposed to religious instruction, which is a different thing altogether), but then I’m sure I’m in a minority on that one.

Yeah, I s’pose. I don’t think crucifixes or turbans should be protected, though. Let schools make whatever dress codes they like, and let people who don’t like the codes go to different schools. I reckon schools should be allowed to insist that all their pupils wear tutus round their necks. The reason these cases are wasting so much time in the courts is the foolish precedent of having given protection to some symbols in the first place.

> The Judge was bang on the money. And if it’s not for an upholder of the Law to decide who should? The Elders of the local church?

On an issue of religion? Yes, of course. That’s what the division of Church and State means. You want to go back to the days of having the legislature decide what worship is legitimate and what isn’t? Our ancestors won this battle, and I don’t want to see it reversed. It’s not long ago you could be jailed for preaching Catholicism. This period of religious freedom is a brief and unusual blip in our history, which the last Government had already started trying to end. Judges have no more place making religious decisions than bishops do passing sentence on criminals.

> Cribbed, in large chunks from the Torah and the Bible. The muslims are just as deluded and plain wrong as everyone else who believes in the power of the supernatural.

I agree. My point, however, was that it is standard Muslim doctrine that the Koran is the absolute word of God, dictated directly to Mohammed, whereas the people who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God are a minority and untraditional Christian sect, albeit quite popular in some areas.

> I refuse to capitalise his name btw on grounds of his nonexistence

Would you capitalise “Gandalf”?