Organised Religion

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JimBentley
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Organised Religion

Post by JimBentley »

No doubt you'll have seen the further censuring of Louis Smith for taking the piss out of Islam (in a private video somehow leaked to The Sun) today; not that a two month ban should bother him, since he's retired.

But, in the absence of any serious topics on here these days, I thought I'd throw this one out there: Why should we respect organised religion in any way when every flavour of it (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) is based on made-up crap out of some guy's head?

Anyway, I especially like mocking Islam because its followers are so po-faced. Even Christians seem to be able to take a joke these days, more's the pity; it's hard to get a rise out of them.

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Hope I get some death threats from this
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Gavin Chipper »

JimBentley wrote:No doubt you'll have seen the further censuring of Louis Smith for taking the piss out of Islam (in a private video somehow leaked to The Sun) today; not that a two month ban should bother him, since he's retired.

But, in the absence of any serious topics on here these days, I thought I'd throw this one out there: Why should we respect organised religion in any way when every flavour of it (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) is based on made-up crap out of some guy's head?

Anyway, I especially like mocking Islam because its followers are so po-faced. Even Christians seem to be able to take a joke these days, more's the pity; it's hard to get a rise out of them.

Fuck Allah!





Hope I get some death threats from this
Religion should not be above criticism or ridicule any more than anything else, such as political views or someone's taste in jumpers.

But in the same way that you wouldn't start mocking some 20-stone geezer standing outside a pub, if you decide to mock Islam you should probably consider who might become aware of it and what the consequences might be. I'm not talking about some stupid governing body sanctioning you, but you don't want to get on the wrong side of these terrorist guys.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by JimBentley »

Gavin Chipper wrote:But in the same way that you wouldn't start mocking some 20-stone geezer standing outside a pub, if you decide to mock Islam you should probably consider who might become aware of it and what the consequences might be. I'm not talking about some stupid governing body sanctioning you, but you don't want to get on the wrong side of these terrorist guys.
I dunno, I've been thinking about that angle lately. I probably wouldn't mock fat people outside pubs (or indeed go into a pub full of Sunderland fans and start talking loudly about how great Newcastle Utd. are) but that's closer, isn't it? There's immediate physical threat.

However, taking the piss out of religion on a purely ideological basis should be encouraged, I think. All organised religion is stupid and should be called out as such at every opportunity. Especially Islam, the most blinkered and absurd religion of the lot.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

I think your message needs a bigger audience so I have reposted it on the Al Jazeera website along with all your personal details so expect a bearded dude to visit soon.
I suggest a bacon reef on the door :D
On a more serious note , my favourite comedy is the Life of Brian a pisstake of Christianity/Judaism.
Hardly banned in the Western world apart from Ireland for a while.
You don't get many self deprecating Islamic comics.
Remember Charlie Hebdo.
So basically you cannot take the piss out of religions that take itself too seriously....though I agree you should be allowed to.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by JimBentley »

Marc Meakin wrote:I think your message needs a bigger audience so I have reposted it on the Al Jazeera website along with all your personal details so expect a bearded dude to visit soon.
I'd actually welcome this. We could have a long theological discussion, following which (due to the power of my arguments) they would have come around to the correct impression that their religion - like all the others - is a load of old bollocks.
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Post by Ben Wilson »

IMO, anything should be able to stand up to criticism or scrutiny. Governments are. Public figures are. Entertainment is. So should religion. Like Jim stated in the original post, all forms of organised religion were thought up by some bloke thousands of years ago. Or by some twat in the 1950s.
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Post by Marc Meakin »

For the sake of fairness maybe atheists should be mocked when they die and made to wear t shirts saying all dressed up and nowhere to go.
To be honest most things should be able to accept a bit of mockery, says someone posting on a geeky forum about the love of Countdown
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Post by JimBentley »

Marc Meakin wrote:For the sake of fairness maybe atheists should be mocked when they die and made to wear t shirts saying all dressed up and nowhere to go.
To be honest most things should be able to accept a bit of mockery, says someone posting on a geeky forum about the love of Countdown
But why does Islam get such a free ride? If Louis Smith had been taking the piss out of Christianity or Mormonism or something, it wouldn't have been a news story.

I know there's the thing whereby you take the piss out of Islam and you get murdered, but frankly I'm long past the point of being scared of being murdered when I walk down the street.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

It's not a new thing though
I remember years ago Tesco's were forced to ditch a piggy bank logo on its til receipts etc for dear of losing its Muslim customers.
I remember during the IRA bombings, nobody was afraid to mock them.
I think Muslim fundementalism is a different ballgame.
Suicide bombings and random stabbings means the naton is scared to offend.
Even the Sun doesn't want to offend its readers
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by JimBentley »

Marc Meakin wrote:It's not a new thing though
I remember years ago Tesco's were forced to ditch a piggy bank logo on its til receipts etc for dear of losing its Muslim customers.
I remember during the IRA bombings, nobody was afraid to mock them.
I think Muslim fundementalism is a different ballgame.
Suicide bombings and random stabbings means the naton is scared to offend.
Even the Sun doesn't want to offend its readers
I know where you're coming from, but that's just a case of the Sun being too scared to call out bullshit where it is - even to the majority of their readers - surely obvious.

Fundamental Christianity is a thing they can - rightly - take the piss out of with complete compunction and if you look at the history, those guys are just as trigger-happy as the followers of Islam (although admittedly the Muslim guys get all the press these days).
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

I do agree that you arr right but society today does not want to offend anyone.
You cannot even assume someone's gender these days without fear of upsetting someone
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Ian Volante »

You say that Muslims are po-faced, I suspect you're conflating the average Muslim with the high-profile mouthpieces. Brendon Burns has interesting anecdotes about doing comedy gigs in Islamic countries, and says that the people there laugh at pretty much exactly the same things we laugh at too. It's worth looking into what he's said on the subject.

The recent story about Syrians finding German mosques too conservative may also point to the issues here.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Paul Worsley »

Marc Meakin wrote: On a more serious note , my favourite comedy is the Life of Brian a pisstake of Christianity/Judaism.
Hardly banned in the Western world apart from Ireland for a while.
There were plenty of calls for The Life of Brian to be banned though. The film was finally given a certificate, but even then many local councils refused to let it be shown. When it was released, I lived in Wigan, hardly a hotbed of religious piety*,yet it was banned there. I had to travel to Chorley to see it. This was 1979, so we're not that far ahead of the curve.

*Couldn't think of any decent pun re Wigan/pie/piety
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Matt Morrison »

a hot bowl of religious pie for tea
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Paul Worsley »

Matt Morrison wrote:a hot bowl of religious pie for tea
I thank you.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by JimBentley »

Ian Volante wrote:You say that Muslims are po-faced, I suspect you're conflating the average Muslim with the high-profile mouthpieces. Brendon Burns has interesting anecdotes about doing comedy gigs in Islamic countries, and says that the people there laugh at pretty much exactly the same things we laugh at too.
I'm sure you're right, I was over-generalising in a bad attempt to make a point. However, if I followed Islam, I'd be pretty pissed off with my religion's so-called mouthpieces. There was one of them on the Daily Politics today who was completely unable to answer the simple question "why should Islam be treated any differently to any other religion?" He argued that it should, but then contradicted himself by saying that "there is a culture of Islamophobia and as such, people need to be more respectful".

So maybe it's just a matter of time; as Marc says, "Life Of Brian" was banned by a lot of councils when it came out. The passage of time has made it OK to poke fun at Christianity; maybe it's just a matter of time before Islam can have fun poked at it in the same way.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

Yes but if the pythons made the Life of Malcolm making fun of the prophet Mohammed , it wouldn't get past the censors nowadays. Plus after Charlie Hebdo what studio would risk making it
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Post by Heather Styles »

According to biblical accounts, Jesus spent quite a bit of time mocking organised religion, so by that token, I don't see how it can be seen a bad thing. In a civilized society, any mature, well-adjusted religion or belief system should be able to take on the chin all sorts of mockery (anything from gentle mickey-taking to expletive-laden ridicule). To quote David Cameron, with whom I don't generally find myself agreeing, "I think in a free society, there is a right to cause offence about someone's religion. I'm a Christian - if someone says something offensive about Jesus, I might find that offensive, but in a free society I don't have a right to, sort of, wreak my vengeance on them."
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Post by Mark James »

This isn't a dig at you Jim, but threads like this are pretty useless some religious idiot comes on to try and defend their ludicrous beliefs. I'll keep me fingers crossed anyway.
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Post by JimBentley »

Mark James wrote:This isn't a dig at you Jim, but threads like this are pretty useless some religious idiot comes on to try and defend their ludicrous beliefs. I'll keep me fingers crossed anyway.
Absolutely. I too was hoping that somebody would come along and disagree vehemently, but (I'm guessing) even if such a person exists and is reading, they might be put off from posting because the thread appears quite echo-chambery with everyone effectively agreeing with me.
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

JimBentley wrote:
Mark James wrote:This isn't a dig at you Jim, but threads like this are pretty useless some religious idiot comes on to try and defend their ludicrous beliefs. I'll keep me fingers crossed anyway.
Absolutely. I too was hoping that somebody would come along and disagree vehemently, but (I'm guessing) even if such a person exists and is reading, they might be put off from posting because the thread appears quite echo-chambery with everyone effectively agreeing with me.
I can't agree with any of that.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

so i guess a venn diagram of Countdown enthusiasts and Islamists would not have much of an overlap then
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Post by Heather Styles »

Ok, if you want a more interesting discussion, how about me saying that religious beliefs are totally open to mockery but that some of them may be worthy of closer analysis rather than complete dismissal as made-up crap? All sorts of religious beliefs have inspired people to do good things down the centuries, so to call it all crap seems a bit of a sweeping statement. This is not to ignore the fact that lots of bad things have been and are done in the name of one religion or another, of course, nor that lots of good has been done by humanists and atheists.
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Post by JimBentley »

Heather Styles wrote:Ok, if you want a more interesting discussion...some of them may be worthy of closer analysis
I think you need to back this up with examples from contemporary religion(s), otherwise it's just so much hot air.

Religion doesn't stand up to analysis, never mind close analysis.
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Post by Heather Styles »

I think I'm going to become quickly unstuck if I go down this route because I am not knowledgeable about many religious beliefs. Also, I think it's really what's in someone's heart than their head that matters most, and how they act is more important than what they say. Sorry to duck the debate after all but there are better people to have it with. I know some of my own actions of late have been anything but good, so what I say probably won't ring true. All I can think of at the moment is a Christian song that says Everyone needs compassion, the kindness of a saviour and another one that talks about the wideness of God's mercy. These are beliefs of the heart, I can't reason them out.
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Post by Mark James »

In order to have a meaningful debate you have to define your terms. What is a God? Any definition I've heard from the religious is either provably wrong or so vague as to be meaningless. Compassion and kindness do not require religion so I wouldn't class them as religious beliefs. Also if you're only being kind because you fear the wrath of an invisible sky ghost rather your own natural empathy then you're not really compassionate at all.
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Post by Marc Meakin »

There is nothing wrong in living by christian values.
Socialism is fundamentally a christian doctrine.
Its the deity part I have trouble with
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I'm agnostic, but one thing I do struggle with is incredibly staunch atheism. I get the whole bit about there being no evidence of a deity, and that religion was invented by people who didn't understand science, and I agree with it. But.....well, wouldn't it be nice if it WAS true? I don't think I want to just rot in the ground.
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Mark Deeks wrote:I'm agnostic, but one thing I do struggle with is incredibly staunch atheism. I get the whole bit about there being no evidence of a deity, and that religion was invented by people who didn't understand science, and I agree with it. But.....well, wouldn't it be nice if it WAS true? I don't think I want to just rot in the ground.
If what was true though? I mean, I do see your point, but I'd rather it not be true that there is a God who just decides to send people to Hell for eternity for not believing in him.
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

I don't know if any of you are aware of William Lane Craig, but he's a Christian who regularly debates with atheists about the existence of God and related matters. He has good oratorical and rhetorical skills, and lots of people think he always wins, but he's basically just intellectually dishonest, and his actual arguments are awful. This, for example is his debate with Christopher Hitchens. I decided to do my own video pointing out the flaws in his arguments. I'm hoping it's going to go viral. I mean, it should do, even if it's not going to.
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Post by Mark James »

Marc Meakin wrote:There is nothing wrong in living by christian values.
Socialism is fundamentally a christian doctrine.
Its the deity part I have trouble with
Again, you have to define your terms. What are christian values? Can you name all of them? Some people think it's christian to deny gay people rights. Others think having trouble with the deity part goes against christian values.

Religion does not get you to morality, you have to use your own morality to agree or disagree with different parts of religious teaching.

Also if any religion can take credit for socialism it would be Zoroastrianism.
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Post by Marc Meakin »

Yeah I certainly didn't mean anything that Roman Catholicism advocates with regards to homosexuality ,abortion and contraception.
My Christian type values is to be tolerant of others and help someone less able than you . Most of the ten commandments are ok too. I do admit you don't have to be a Christian to carry out these values.
Going back to Marcs point about Atheism.
I find Dawkins odious and a lot of Atheists are not very tolerant of Christians
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Post by Paul Worsley »

Marc Meakin wrote: Most of the ten commandments are ok too.
The first four are just god protecting his monopoly ( No other god's, no talking back to god etc) The rest are either common sense (Thou shall not kill) or irrelevant (coveting neighbour's ass etc)

As Jim Jeffries pointed out, the ten commandments could be shortened to the two commandments 1) Don't kill anyone. 2) Try not to be a cunt.
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Post by L'oisleatch McGraw »

Of the codes of conduct that are out there, Christianity is a pretty good one imo.
It is certainly preferable to smug liberalism, and/or market economy values... which are the current driving forces behind Western society.

According to my beliefs, it is quite unlikely that we will just 'rot in the ground' when we die.
But that is unknowable so not even worth debating.
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Paul Worsley wrote:
Marc Meakin wrote: Most of the ten commandments are ok too.
The first four are just god protecting his monopoly ( No other god's, no talking back to god etc) The rest are either common sense (Thou shall not kill) or irrelevant (coveting neighbour's ass etc)

As Jim Jeffries pointed out, the ten commandments could be shortened to the two commandments 1) Don't kill anyone. 2) Try not to be a cunt.
I agree with this 100%. I don't think that people need explicit instructions - supposedly originating from a supernatural being - to adequately live their lives without hurting others. Perhaps I'm looking excessively on the bright side, but I'd prefer to believe that it's a natural human instinct not to cause suffering, rather than a thing that needs to be learned. I don't think that anyone is born inherently immoral (or as religions would have it, "evil").
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Post by Heather Styles »

I have yet to meet anyone who has never, ever hurt anyone else. My tendency, therefore, is to think that we are born error-prone. Is this pessimism or realism? If you leave two normal kids alone to play nicely together, it isn't generally very long before one of them has done something disagreeable to the other.
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L'oisleatch McGraw wrote:Of the codes of conduct that are out there, Christianity is a pretty good one imo.
It is certainly preferable to smug liberalism, and/or market economy values... which are the current driving forces behind Western society.
If smug liberalism was in charge, I doubt we'd have the broad swathe of right-wing governments across the occident at the moment.
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Post by JimBentley »

Ian Volante wrote:
L'oisleatch McGraw wrote:Of the codes of conduct that are out there, Christianity is a pretty good one imo.
It is certainly preferable to smug liberalism, and/or market economy values... which are the current driving forces behind Western society.
If smug liberalism was in charge, I doubt we'd have the broad swathe of right-wing governments across the occident at the moment.
Exactly. At the risk of derailing the topic this view that "smug liberals" are in charge of governments is a bit like the old "the BBC is left-wing" argument; neither stands up to any scrutiny. The BBC in particular seems to be lurching alarmingly to the right (although I suppose you could counter-argue that society in general is moving rightwards and they're just reflecting that) and some of its news and politics coverage lately has been like a Conservative Party Political Broadcast.

It's actually quite illuminating to look at the current hierarchy of BBC News; a lot of them seem to have had direct links to the Conservative Party in their pasts, whether through student politics or later, and despite their protestations of being unbiased, the slant shows through quite clearly in their reporting (hello Laura Kuenssberg, Nick Robinson, and so on). For my money Channel 4 News is the best at the moment for reasonably unbiased coverage of events.

But then again I can't say that I'm unbiased - I freely admit that I am more sympathetic to causes and values that would be labelled "left-wing" - so maybe I'm just as bad.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Apparently Jediism isn't a religion because it doesn't have a positive beneficial impact on society in general. I can see a few other more mainstream religions quaking in their boots (not the Quakers, you idiot - that's not funny).
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Post by Heather Styles »

I would be interested to know how they (whoever they are) measure the impact of a religion, or something like a religion, on society in general. Surely you'd have to look at (perceived) net impact rather than just (perceived) positive impact in order for this to be a meaningful way of assessing whether or not something is a religion. And then whose perceptions would be considered relevant? Also, it seems to imply that any positive impact is all one way, as if there is nothing good about 'society in general', which strikes me as a reductive way of looking at it. But I don't think it is of ultimate importance which religion, or religion-like thing, if any, people identify with because religion and religion-like things are human constructs.
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Post by Heather Styles »

I wanted to come on here to defend my religious beliefs but I've realised that I don't have any. Life is just a heap of randomness and no-one's guess is any better than anyone else's.
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

My take on religion is that if you believe in heaven you are less likely to be afraid of dying/ dealing with grief.
Although I believe in the theory that if time travels in a slight curve it must eventually form a circle and therefore we will return to make the same mistakes etc again and again.
Also I believe any religious constructs that imply paradise in the kingdom of heaven, don't exactly encourage people to do good in this life
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Post by Heather Styles »

Yes, I agree, paradise seems pretty dubious as an idea. I can understand why people would want to believe it, though, especially those who don't have much going for them in life.
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Post by Gavin Chipper »

I thought I might bump this thread to bring up the fact that after over 30 years, someone did actually attack Salman Rushdie. Pretty bad obviously but at least he's not actually dead - yet anyway. It's unclear exactly how serious it is apart from certain details like probably losing an eye.

But this is just another example of a problem with organised religion, or mindlessly following some guy who claims to speak for your religion.

And while I'm here, supporting organised religion is generally seen as more conservative or "right-wing" thing, whereas hatred of it is seen as more of a "leftie" thing. However, this seems to have got reversed a bit with Islam, or maybe religions practised by non-white people more generally. People are often seen as racist far right bigots for mocking Islam, and one of the things people use to attack Boris Johnson is the letterbox comment he made about burkas.

But as Jim said right from the start of this thread, we should be able to mock all religion. Obviously there are racists out there who would exclusively target specific religions (e.g. Islam) and wouldn't touch others (e.g. Christianity) but are using religion as way of disguising their racism, so we have to be careful about who we support over this kind of thing. E.g. if Boris Johnson says anything at all, you have to wonder about where it's coming from. But other than that, mock yourselves out.
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Post by Fiona T »

I'm very much drawn to the humanist movement - https://humanists.uk/

It's a relatively new discovery (for me, although well before the Rushdie thing - I learnt of it through their page rather than BBC) so perhaps there is stuff that they support/do that I don't agree with, but generally it seems sound for someone who rejects religion, but respects people's rights to be religious, but not to impose those beliefs on others/government/policy making. Personally I don't think mocking other people's beliefs are the way to go, and I do try and understand where my religious (most Christian) friends beliefs come from - I wouldn't say I'm 100% convinced there's no God - just 95 :)
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Gavin Chipper »

I mean, I wouldn't tend to mock individuals who follow a religion, unless there is a specific reason to target that individual (like they're in a position of power within that religion and acting in a bad way), but I think an "assessment" of the general practices of a religion is OK.
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Post by Fiona T »

So the whole queen dying/funeral thing seems to have revived religious fervour. I've become more and more sceptical about religion, and whilst I'm happy for people to be free to believe what they want to believe, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with the role of religion in state and politics. I'd like to see us as a secular country which tolerates people worshipping whatever flavour of god they want to without it being a fundamental part of state and politics

Believing in a god is akin to believing in Santa Claus - just takes us longer to realise he really isn't real.
Marc Meakin
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

I've started to believe in God, creationism and intelligent design.
God put Richard Dawkins on the earth to test us.
Like Fossils and facts 😊
Last edited by Marc Meakin on Tue Sep 20, 2022 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Gavin Chipper
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Re: Organised Religion

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Marc Meakin wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:43 am I've started to believe in God, creationism and intelligent design.
God put Richard Dawson on the earth to test us.
Like Fossils and facts 😊
Richard Dawkins?
Marc Meakin
Post-apocalypse
Posts: 6240
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 3:37 pm

Re: Organised Religion

Post by Marc Meakin »

Gavin Chipper wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:24 am
Marc Meakin wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:43 am I've started to believe in God, creationism and intelligent design.
God put Richard Dawson on the earth to test us.
Like Fossils and facts 😊
Richard Dawkins?
Ffs yes I've been up since 4 that's my excuse for crap plagirism
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