Religion

[Paul Anderson]

Ex-cafflik, ex-atheist
My views would take too long to properly explain without a pub table and someone getting the rounds in

[Gavin Chipper]

Don't worry about me Fiona. I'm not currently close to that point.

Heh - your bumping of this post prompts me to just add that I no longer consider myself a Christian and haven't for about a year and a half or so now.

My environment played a big part - finishing uni, where the church community was a huge part of my life, and Covid disrupting the weekly teachings gave me time to take a step back.

The idea of religion being an evolutionarily beneficial aspect of humankind, and distinguishing between truth on the one hand, and contentment on the other led me in this direction.

I have zero doubt that my faith had a huge net positive effect on my life, so I was of course always very resistant to arguments against its positive impact, but decided that the odds of the specific religion I grew up with being correct and all other religions across the diversity of cultures today and throughout human history being incorrect were quite slim.

This is interesting and thanks for sharing, though weirdly I'm prety sure I'd already heard you say you longer consider yourself to be a Christian. Maybe it was somewhere other than c4c, if such a place exists.

[Fiona T]

Don't worry about me Fiona. I'm not currently close to that point.

Heh - your bumping of this post prompts me to just add that I no longer consider myself a Christian and haven't for about a year and a half or so now.

My environment played a big part - finishing uni, where the church community was a huge part of my life, and Covid disrupting the weekly teachings gave me time to take a step back.

The idea of religion being an evolutionarily beneficial aspect of humankind, and distinguishing between truth on the one hand, and contentment on the other led me in this direction.

I have zero doubt that my faith had a huge net positive effect on my life, so I was of course always very resistant to arguments against its positive impact, but decided that the odds of the specific religion I grew up with being correct and all other religions across the diversity of cultures today and throughout human history being incorrect were quite slim.

This is interesting and thanks for sharing, though weirdly I'm prety sure I'd already heard you say you longer consider yourself to be a Christian. Maybe it was somewhere other than c4c, if such a place exists.

yep was c4c, but not the religion thread. Probably parkruns or a spoiler somewhere

[Gavin Chipper]

Here it seems. (The animal abuse thread.)

[Fiona T]

Long waffly post alert...

The community part of religion is massive - it gives a sense of belonging, understanding, support - and often help to the wider community which are good and compassionate things. But on a less benign level it's also a mechanism for radicalisation - thinking of the recent media stuff around "Where do you really come from" - it's not a massive leap to see how a young person trying to find their identity who is made to feel they don't belong and looking for acceptance can be gradually persuaded to extremist ideals.

A belief in (a) God is understandable, but organised religion as we know it - whatever flavour - evolved as a mechanism for controlling people and often getting them to accept whatever shit the rich put them through in the belief that there was a better purpose. It's moved on and I'd like to think that most religious leaders really do believe the stuff they're teaching, but there's no getting away from the problems it causes - whether extreme cases like the current spotlights on Iran and Qatar, or more locally Northern Ireland, or even Celtic v Rangers, where marginally different flavours of the same religion is used as the excuse for hatred and division.

It seems impossible to think that one religion is right and all the others are wrong - and as soon as you come to that realisation, you think about the nature of a God if he/she exists - surely if there was an afterlife and a heaven/hell decision (not something I personally believe in, but I get it) then judgement would be on merit, not on which interpretation you'd happen to been born into and brought up to follow. (I like the line from the Proclaimers - if I am found wanting/when my case is heard/it will be by the author/not some interpreter of his word. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51QnpVFJB0U )

I think prayer does help - but insomuch as it gives an opportunity to articulate your feelings/problems/thoughts and tell them to God, who is a brilliant listener. A lot of people do that at bedtime, and your subconscious puts some order to it, and sometimes answers come. I think the same effect can be achieved from an honest and heartfelt confession to your cat

And religion in politics is a big problem - UK is lagging behind on things like assisted dying. We show greater compassion to our pets than we do to terminally ill humans who are suffering.

Have probably said most of this before more than once - guess it's something I've got more anti in recent years as I've realised the harm it does probably by far outweighs the good (and I do think most of the good people are very good, and would be good without God telling them to be!)


TLDR: Religion has its positives, but too often is an excuse for really terrible things. And is a mechanism for control and manipulation.

[Marc Meakin]

Christian values without the God bothering that's about as close to being religious I will ever get.
Im intrigued about how you can be a former atheist though

[Fiona T]

Christian values without the God bothering that's about as close to being religious I will ever get.
Im intrigued about how you can be a former atheist though

Surely the "Christian values" you refer to are basic values of human decency? Values that are arrived at through logic, reason and experience about what is best for the common good and society. Not sure that the Christians can claim them as their own, any more than Muslims, Jews, Sikhs or Flying Spaghetti Monster worshippers.

I'm assuming you don't ascribe to the values of homophobia, misogynism etc that still underpin a lot of Christian church practices.

But what churches do provide is a means for a group of like minded people to pool resources and work together to help others (the good bit of religion!). It's difficult to find the same sense of belonging and working together for good in the secular world.

[Ahmed M]

Im intrigued about how you can be a former atheist though

Going from atheism to agnosticism is not uncommon

[Gavin Chipper]

But what churches do provide is a means for a group of like minded people to pool resources and work together to help others (the good bit of religion!). It's difficult to find the same sense of belonging and working together for good in the secular world.

Are people who go to church like-minded though? They have this one thing that they have in common, but other than that they can be very different. You get generous Christians, but you also get an awful lot of Conservative, conservative types, who are basically unpleasant Nigel Farage types.

[Fiona T]

According to this: "The evidence shows that religious and non-religious people volunteer and give to charity at similar rates. The non-religious just don’t generally do it in the name of their non-religiosity."

[Marc Meakin]

Christian values without the God bothering that's about as close to being religious I will ever get.
Im intrigued about how you can be a former atheist though

Surely the "Christian values" you refer to are basic values of human decency? Values that are arrived at through logic, reason and experience about what is best for the common good and society. Not sure that the Christians can claim them as their own, any more than Muslims, Jews, Sikhs or Flying Spaghetti Monster worshippers.

I'm assuming you don't ascribe to the values of homophobia, misogynism etc that still underpin a lot of Christian church practices.

But what churches do provide is a means for a group of like minded people to pool resources and work together to help others (the good bit of religion!). It's difficult to find the same sense of belonging and working together for good in the secular world.

I guess the Christian values I ascribe to is not unlike socialism, Ie helping someone in need but yes I use 'Christian values' figuratively
Most religions are not progressive so abortion and homosexuality is frowned on because an ancient book says so

[Callum Todd]

I've been reading a bit of Yuval Noah Harari recently and think that those of you who find this topic interesting might enjoy his discussions about religion. If you don't have time to read Sapiens and Homo Deus then just whack his name into YouTube along with a topic name such as "religion" and you'll probably find him talking about it somewhere.

He's far from a font of all knowledge and seems to have ruffled a few feathers amongst specialists when he casually wanders through their field of expertise with his generalist musings, but his framing of ideas is fascinating.

His definition of "religion" is interesting as to him that term equally describes ideologies such as Communism, Nazism, liberalism, humanism, etc, as it does things like Christianity, Judaism, Islam.

Essentially he posits that a "religion" (or ideology if you prefer) is necessary for us all to derive some 'oughts' from the 'is'seses we get from science. Where traditional "religions" (those with a big sky God or similar) go wrong in his view is by smuggling in some erroneous 'is' statements to beef up their 'oughts'. These can quickly snowball.

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

"we ought to do what God commands us" is an 'ought' statement popular in religion, that in itself isn't necessary wrong or problematic.

"the Bible is the accurate word of God" - is an 'is' statement that is often parroted by some of the world's major religions, but it is not true, as studies of the Bible's origins have shown it was written by various human authors several hundred years after the events it describes and contains many historical inaccuracies.

The smuggling in of this latter 'is' allows the first 'is' statement above to be transformed through the lens of the otherwise harmless 'ought' above to read something like: 'we ought to condemn homosexuals and punish them in the name of God'. It's not the ought that's the problem as such, it's the erroneous isseses.

The solution to that? More and better science.

[Gavin Chipper]

Well it's the classic problem of getting an "ought" from an "is". Failure to bridge that gap is why some would argue that there is no such thing as objective morality. More and better science won't necessarily help us with that - it's a fundamental problem with all our morality!

[Callum Todd]

Yes, the is-ought problem is what I intended to highlight. I don't think "more and better science" solves that problem or necessarily gives us an objective morality (although I am sympathetic to the attempt to ground morality in objectivity), just that it solves the problem of traditional godly religions creating problematic 'oughts' like homophobia, etc, by science disproving the "is" part of their assertion and thereby weakening their claim.

[Mark James]

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

No it's not.

[Marc Meakin]

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

No it's not.

It's only wrong as a method for procreation

[Fiona T]

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

No it's not.

I'm pretty sure that Callum means that it is (scientifically) true that the bible says it!

[Callum Todd]

Ha, oops! That phrasing certainly sounded a lot clearer in my head the first time round. I would hope it's obvious from the context of the post that sentence was in that I wasn't being homophobic. I meant what Fiona said.

[Stewart Gordon]

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

No it's not.

I'm pretty sure that Callum means that it is (scientifically) true that the bible says it!

That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible reference? And what translation are you using?

[Mark James]

E.g.
"the bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together" is an 'is' statement that is scientifically true.

No it's not.

I'm pretty sure that Callum means that it is (scientifically) true that the bible says it!

I did suspect that may be the case. Cheers for the clear up though.

[Callum Todd]

No it's not.

I'm pretty sure that Callum means that it is (scientifically) true that the bible says it!

That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible reference? And what translation are you using?

This is one of the starkest examples. You can choose whichever translation you like on that website.

[Stewart Gordon]

That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible reference? And what translation are you using?

This is one of the starkest examples. You can choose whichever translation you like on that website.

But in order to interpret "as he lieth with a woman", you need a pre-established norm. Is this norm pre-established anywhere?

[Callum Todd]

That's the way I interpreted it. But what's the Bible reference? And what translation are you using?

This is one of the starkest examples. You can choose whichever translation you like on that website.

But in order to interpret "as he lieth with a woman", you need a pre-established norm. Is this norm pre-established anywhere?

Given that all the folks who read that book, both now and ever since it was written, are humans who were born at some point, I'd say it's fairly well pre-established that men lieth with women, yes.

[Fiona T]

This is one of the starkest examples. You can choose whichever translation you like on that website.

But in order to interpret "as he lieth with a woman", you need a pre-established norm. Is this norm pre-established anywhere?

Given that all the folks who read that book, both now and ever since it was written, are humans who were born at some point, I'd say it's fairly well pre-established that men lieth with women, yes.

If we're arguing logic, Stewart has a good point. Does the bible specify HOW man lieth with woman? It's arguable that the way man lieth with man is not "as" (the same as) he lieth with woman. Different orifices and all that

[Gavin Chipper]

Well quoting from the thing (King James Version as originally linked by Callum):

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Lie doesn't standardly mean anything about sex. It's used euphemistically here if anything, so if anyone wanted to be literal about it, it's already looking shaky.

Mankind standardly means humans of either sex, so it's not really even making much sense at this point. (Though if you change to a different translation this changes to man or male etc.)

Surely is not standardly an imperative and doesn't suggest any sort of approval.

But really we'd need an accurate translation of the original, rather than an "interpretation", so we'd need an expert in the field to check it out for us.

As an aside, I'm not quite sure what the obsession is with the King James version of the Bible - it's an obsolete form of English and not the original anyway, so why is it still used?

[Callum Todd]

If you use the tool on the website I linked to choose different Bible versions, many of them are quite explicit in saying "have sexual relations with a man" or similar. So, the KJV's flowery language aside, it's fairly well agreed what that bit means.

Essentially, to counter my original point that "the Bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together", and that this has caused centuries of religion-inspired homophobia, you would have to actively attempt to explain away several such verses in scripture using the most generous possible interpretations, and ignore the fact that for centuries most Christians (or at least most of those in power) didn't interpret those scriptures as peacefully as you did.

It is entirely unambiguous and uncontroversial to say that the contents of holy books have been used for centuries to justify the hatred and oppression of homosexuals. And while you can always try to come up with a nicer interpretation of those books, it's not hard when looking at the texts to see where the nasty interpretation came from.

[Gavin Chipper]

Yeah, I was just playing the game that others had started. I don't doubt the intent really.

[Fiona T]

Yeah, I was just playing the game that others had started. I don't doubt the intent really.

Ditto - religion absolutely has been used as justification for hate, violence and persecution.

Merry Christmas!

[Adam Gillard]

If you use the tool on the website I linked to choose different Bible versions, many of them are quite explicit in saying "have sexual relations with a man" or similar. So, the KJV's flowery language aside, it's fairly well agreed what that bit means.

Essentially, to counter my original point that "the Bible says it is wrong for two men to have sexual relations together", and that this has caused centuries of religion-inspired homophobia, you would have to actively attempt to explain away several such verses in scripture using the most generous possible interpretations, and ignore the fact that for centuries most Christians (or at least most of those in power) didn't interpret those scriptures as peacefully as you did.

It is entirely unambiguous and uncontroversial to say that the contents of holy books have been used for centuries to justify the hatred and oppression of homosexuals. And while you can always try to come up with a nicer interpretation of those books, it's not hard when looking at the texts to see where the nasty interpretation came from.

This is right. Untranslated it's very clear that it means "have sexual relations with a man" and there's no question about its interpretation. The "shall surely die" / punishment bit is where the different religions and sects therein have probably differed more over the centuries and still do to this day. From "obviously this means the culprits should be put to death" to "obviously we can't apply this barbaric law in our times" and everything in between.

In Judaism all these death penalty bits in the Old Testament (not just this one but prohibitions against incest, witchcraft, all sorts of other things) are wrapped in loads of terms and conditions and this meant they were rarely if ever enacted by the courts. The main conditions being that the culprit(s) had to be warned in the presence of two witnesses and then continue the act in front of two witnesses, all the while being told in very specific wording that if they continued they would be brought to court and liable to the death penalty, which could itself be transferred to the witnesses if they were found to be making it up. It was said that if a court put one person to death in a 70 year span then it would have been deemed "bloodthirsty". That's not to say that religious zealots, unofficial / corrupt courts etc. didn't take the law into their own hands and enact the death penalty (as still happens these days). In any case, the simple reading of the text would lead anyone to believe that the recommended course of action is the death penalty and even after millennia of interpretation this is still how many people would read it and act upon it, unfortunately. This makes the text very dangerous and also promotes exclusion and oppression as others have said, even if this doesn't stretch to the death penalty.

[Marc Meakin]

Can you be openly gay and religious?
Wouldn't it just be contradictory?
Although I'm talking about Christian faiths, Judaism and Muslim faiths as I don't know enough about other faiths like Hinduism and Budhism

[Gavin Chipper]

Reverend Richard Coles thinks so.

[Marc Meakin]

Reverend Richard Coles thinks so.

Good point, has anyone challenged his beliefs.
I mean fundamentalists take what they want from their chosen bible/Talmud /Quran etc and use it to justify extreme views, but do religious gays ignore the texts that disclude them

[Adam Gillard]

Can you be openly gay and religious?
Wouldn't it just be contradictory?
Although I'm talking about Christian faiths, Judaism and Muslim faiths as I don't know enough about other faiths like Hinduism and Budhism

In Judaism it's very hard to be openly gay and religious, in this country at least. The few Jewish people I'm acquainted with in that position almost have to be super-educated advocates in order to reconcile their continuing place within the religious community.

[Fiona T]

So - last week I learned of an example where prayers really did work.

Churches have prayer lists. I was talking to someone who had asked the members of their church to pray for them and their particular problem. Someone from the church was able to offer a solution to the problem and felt God calling them to do so.

Now being somewhat sceptical, I think it was human kindness, compassion and love that called them to help and they should take the credit rather than giving it to God, but there's no doubt that without the prayer list, it wouldn't have happened, as there would have been no way they'd have known of the problem, and no way the person would have asked for the help they needed or even known what the help they needed was - they presented a problem - the member of the church community saw a solution ( I hope I've represented this accurately - it was quite a brief conversation!)

Even if you replaced the prayer list with a 'thoughts list' or some non-religious equivalent, people are often embarrassed to ask for human help and the communities to provide that help don't exist in the secular world, so I'm not sure how you'd get the same effect outside of a church environment. The belief in God is definitely a facilitator to get help to people.

Definitely an example of the good that can come from a religious community and prayer working, albeit IMO because of people rather than God.

I am a member of a facebook group called "The Yes Tribe" where people do ask for help and get it - haven't really got into it, but seems a good starting point (I believe there are local groups too) but it's not really a replacement for that sort of thing.

[Gavin Chipper]

Maybe we should have a help thread here.

[Callum Todd]

Fiona's story is a great modern-day example of one of the ways in which religion can be advantageous to societies, as we've discussed before on this thread and elsewhere, I think.

[Gavin Chipper]

Thinking about it, people post all sorts of problems they have on Facebook all the time that their hundreds of Facebook friends might read, and quite often people will post advice about that. If someone thinks they have the solution to the problem, it's likely to get posted. So I don't really see this as a religion-only example.

But obviously, just because I don't believe in any god, it doesn't mean that I think it's impossible for religion to have any advantages in the world, but I definitely think it has a net negative effect.

[Fiona T]

For those that believe in God...

Do you think the God you worship is the same God that the Christians/Muslims/Jews worship?

It seems to me that most of the troubles in today's world are around not what God you believe in, but how you worship your God. Is he really that insecure that he'll damn those who pray via the wrong channel, or facing the wrong direction, or at the wrong times, or eat the wrong foods, or wear the wrong clothes to an eternity of hell? Even within different flavours of the same religion, small differences seem to be enough to cause hate and division (Catholic v Protestant, Sunni v Shia etc)

Where is the love for fellow humans regardless of how/when/who (or if) they pray to?

I realise the stuff that's hit the news recently isn't really new, but 1000s of innocent civilians are being killed because of differences in the way that God is worshipped. How's he gonna fix this? Is he just sitting back with the popcorn?

(genuine question - keen to hear the views of those who believe)

[Marc Meakin]

When I was a youngster, I kinda believed in God as I went to Sunday school (probably so my parents could have some afternoon delight on a Sunday) it was fun and there is nought wrong with Christian values.
As I got older, growing up with the Troubles being only a few hundred miles away and then spilled ove on our doorstep and I found it hard that two people's who worship the same type of Christian god was at each others throats and when I realised that not only was this going on but confessing to your priest gave you a solution so felt like an endorsement.
Then I watched a TV series about the holocaust and I thought how could any god let this happen.
Then I studied a bit of history about the crusades and I thought that Christianity had a lot to answer for even then.

Basically I have not even considered god anymore.

Evil prevails when good people do nothing.
Its difficult nowadays to even point out the good people
Humanity is doomed.
Im starting to wonder if this generation will be the last to reach old age

[Stewart Gordon]

Im starting to wonder if this generation will be the last to reach old age

Probably not, because the definition of "old age" will change to reflect the age people are generally living to.

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young.

[Johnny Canuck]

Im starting to wonder if this generation will be the last to reach old age

Probably not, because the definition of "old age" will change to reflect the age people are generally living to.

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young.

Didn't it turn out Methuselah's age was actually given in months?

[Gavin Chipper]

Im starting to wonder if this generation will be the last to reach old age

Probably not, because the definition of "old age" will change to reflect the age people are generally living to.

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young.

Didn't it turn out Methuselah's age was actually given in months?

I think it's similar to the Jeanne Calment case.

[Fiona T]

..there is nought wrong with Christian values.

Oh I think there's plenty wrong with a lot of Christian values. Inequality, homophobia, mysoginism for starters

I suspect those aren't the values you mean though - you mean love, honesty, helping those less fortunate etc, etc... Christians don't have a monopoly on those values, and religion is not a requirement to live a moral, fulfilling and meaningful life. Indeed the best approach to life is to accept you only have one shot at it, so live it in the best way you can for yourself and society.

[Phil H]

Didn't it turn out Methuselah's age was actually given in months?

I don't think so given that the previous few lines of the same chapter refer to Methuselah's own father being 65 at the time of his birth
(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=NIV)

Genesis 7:6 goes on to claim that Noah was 600 when the Flood happened - someone did the arithmetic and found that Methuselah would have turned 969 the same year and therefore may have been among those that drowned.

[Callum Todd]

[...] religion is not a requirement to live a [...] meaningful life.

I think it could be said that religion is a requirement to live an objectively meaningful life, with the caveat that it is almost certain that the objective behind that meaning is false.

I believe that's essentially the main reason, other than perhaps the general resilience of being grandfathered in, that religion continues to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in human societies after many of its other qualities have largely outlived their evolutionary advantage.

[Fiona T]

[...] religion is not a requirement to live a [...] meaningful life.

I think it could be said that religion is a requirement to live an objectively meaningful life, with the caveat that it is almost certain that the objective behind that meaning is false.

I believe that's essentially the main reason, other than perhaps the general resilience of being grandfathered in, that religion continues to be a ubiquitous phenomenon in human societies after many of its other qualities have largely outlived their evolutionary advantage.

How can it be meaningful if it's false? Spending your one and only brief shot at life with the false hope of having a better afterlife seems a terrible waste. The best way to get meaning from life is the here and now - make your impact on the world a positive one (something you've definitely embraced with your veganism), get joy from nature, relationships, friendships, activities, work, leisure. Forgive others (and yourself) not because the bible dictates it, but because that's the way to find contentment.

God existed because we didn't have science. Religion evolved as a way to control the masses and make them accept the shitty lot that many had with the promise of something better to come.

[Callum Todd]

How can it be meaningful if it's false? Spending your one and only brief shot at life with the false hope of having a better afterlife seems a terrible waste. The best way to get meaning from life is the here and now - make your impact on the world a positive one (something you've definitely embraced with your veganism), get joy from nature, relationships, friendships, activities, work, leisure. Forgive others (and yourself) not because the bible dictates it, but because that's the way to find contentment.

It can't, but people who find meaning in a religious claim wouldn't believe it to be false.

Agreed with the rest as a good source of subjective meaning. But it is subjective. I think any objective claim on meaningfulness of life is necessarily religious, even if it does not explicitly invoke the divine. Without any religious belief we are left to form our own subjective meaning or accept absurdism, lest we fall into nihilism.

[Stewart Gordon]

Back in Methuselah's time, 100 was probably considered young.

Didn't it turn out Methuselah's age was actually given in months?

Hmm. It seems virtually all translations give it as 969 years. Looking at those on Bible Gateway, it seems the only exceptions are:
* GNT states "years" for time lived after having the mentioned child, and TLB does for age at mentioned child and time lived after. So the unit of the age at death is implied by the arithmetic.
* OJB uses the obscure word "shanah" in place of "years", among other obscure words.
* CEV doesn't specify units of age in the chapter at all.

[Gavin Chipper]

I suppose it doesn't matter too much. It's not like it's true...

[Marc Meakin]

I suppose it doesn't matter too much. It's not like it's true...

Genuine, question.
Is there anything in the old testament that is based on fact?
I'm sure the new testament is fairly factual though

[Elliott Mellor]

How can it be meaningful if it's false? Spending your one and only brief shot at life with the false hope of having a better afterlife seems a terrible waste. The best way to get meaning from life is the here and now - make your impact on the world a positive one (something you've definitely embraced with your veganism), get joy from nature, relationships, friendships, activities, work, leisure. Forgive others (and yourself) not because the bible dictates it, but because that's the way to find contentment.

It can't, but people who find meaning in a religious claim wouldn't believe it to be false.

Agreed with the rest as a good source of subjective meaning. But it is subjective. I think any objective claim on meaningfulness of life is necessarily religious, even if it does not explicitly invoke the divine. Without any religious belief we are left to form our own subjective meaning or accept absurdism, lest we fall into nihilism.

I'm not sure I'm totally with this take. I strongly refute the idea that belief in the meaningfulness of life is inherently religious. I think life has meaning, and I'm very much an atheist. You don't need to believe in any higher power or spirit in order to believe that life has meaning at all. I'm totally at peace with the fact that when I die, that's the end, and that whilst I'm alive I should try and have a positive impact on the world and enjoy the time that I am here in a conscious form.

I think your last sentence here is especially puzzling - people who are religious form subjective opinions on things as well. Even those in the same religion as fellow humans may hold wildly different beliefs and have different interpretations of what things mean. In fact, given the great number of wars caused by religion, I'd even say that religion causes people to form subjective opinions.

[Elliott Mellor]

I suppose it doesn't matter too much. It's not like it's true...

Genuine, question.
Is there anything in the old testament that is based on fact?
I'm sure the new testament is fairly factual though

What would you classify as being factual within it?

[Marc Meakin]

I suppose it doesn't matter too much. It's not like it's true...

Genuine, question.
Is there anything in the old testament that is based on fact?
I'm sure the new testament is fairly factual though

What would you classify as being factual within it?

Some of the jesus parts are true surely.
Also the apostles maybe

[Elliott Mellor]

Genuine, question.
Is there anything in the old testament that is based on fact?
I'm sure the new testament is fairly factual though

What would you classify as being factual within it?

Some of the jesus parts are true surely.
Also the apostles maybe

Which ones?

[Marc Meakin]

I assume there is evidence that jesus existed and also the apostles and probably the crucifiction

[Fiona T]

I assume there is evidence that jesus existed and also the apostles and probably the crucifiction

That's not old testament

[Marc Meakin]

I assume there is evidence that jesus existed and also the apostles and probably the crucifiction

That's not old testament

Oh I agree the old testament is just a story, which was why I asked if ANY of the Old Testament was factual though I concede that some of the new testament possibly is

[Paul Worsley]

I assume there is evidence that jesus existed and also the apostles and probably the crucifiction

The earliest Gospels were written some 50-100 years after his alleged death, and none of them are thought to have been written by eye-witnesses. Jesus is not mentioned in any historical documents. The Gospels do refer to known historical figures, but get the timeline wrong For instance, there was a census conducted by Quirinius, governor of Syria, but not until 10ad, and there was no requirement to return to the city of your birth. (The Romans weren't stupid). King Herod died before Jesus was supposedly born too.

[Phil H]

The majority of scholars do affirm Jesus' existence as a historical figure and there seems to be some debate as to whether the alternative 'mythicist' view should be taken seriously at all. (Bart Ehrman's 'Did Jesus Exist?' is among the best-known works to answer 'yes' to that question.)

Jesus is not mentioned in any historical documents

Assume you meant *contemporaneous* historical documents?

[Phil H]

Is there anything in the old testament that is based on fact?

I might try to read/listen to a bit more on this, but brief internet research suggests that Jewish people did indeed experience a period of forced exile and captivity in Babylon - this is the context of much of the prophetic books of the middle to later Old Testament, including the episode of Daniel in the lions' den.

On the other hand, Israel's mass return from exile in Egypt under Moses, in the earlier Old Testament, is highly unlikely to have happened.