No Amph. Like Arcanus used to say in his sig: Reading Dawkins on religion is like reading Ray Comfort on evolution. Dawkins is ignorant on the subject.

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(December 19, 2009 at 9:21 pm)Northerner Wrote: Oh, but I did practice as a Catholic when I was younger. I recall going to church with school friends on a Sunday, then spending a few hours in the social club at the back of the church drinking coca cola and playing snooker.. At the time that was a good day, and the odd teacher from school would see us and we would get a few brownie points in school for being good boys.

I was also noted for being knowledgeable in Religious Education, although I did upset my teacher sometimes with questions he could not answer. But for years after I left school I became apathetic about Religion, joking that on my death bed I will receive last rites and go to heaven like a good Catholic..

I think it was 9/11 that made me more aware and prompted me to become more outspoken as an Atheist. After all, I seem to have one of those faces that makes people try to convert me, so I am only too happy to continue the conversation for a few hours until the other person gives up or I get too tired and go home.

I have religious friends, some of them Muslim. My girlfriend is a devout Catholic! And I have family members who go to Church every day.. I know religion, I even once tried to believe. But I am unable to accept it any longer..

Yeah you went through the motions and are joined at the hip to Catholics. You've never once said there that you rationally believed. I know loads of people that are very knowledgeable about religions and Christianity in particular. That says bugger all about their faith tho'.

My story would be very similar to yours, except my family weren't believers. I was sent to sunday school, went through RE classes and decided I was an atheist. Never ever tho' would I say I was ever a Christian.. I had no concept of what that meant. Yeah I prayed for stuff for Xmas etc.. but I never ever understood what it was to believe in God or why anyone should.

(December 19, 2009 at 11:04 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Yeah you went through the motions and are joined at the hip to Catholics. You've never once said there that you rationally believed. I know loads of people that are very knowledgeable about religions and Christianity in particular. That says bugger all about their faith tho'.

My story would be very similar to yours, except my family weren't believers. I was sent to sunday school, went through RE classes and decided I was an atheist. Never ever tho' would I say I was ever a Christian.. I had no concept of what that meant. Yeah I prayed for stuff for Xmas etc.. but I never ever understood what it was to believe in God or why anyone should.

When I was a child I did believe. But then there was a time when I also believed in the tooth fairy and santa clause... So...

But you are correct. As I grew I lost my faith! It became impossible to accept stories of magic and miracles when the only proof offered was the demand that I have faith! Sorry, not good enough.. Plus, when I try to imagine myself as a being (such as the biblical God), it seems impossible that of all the things I would choose to do is create beings for no other purpose than to worship me! Sounds more like an egotistical dictator, kind of like the ones who perpetuated Religion in the first place!

So there lies the biggest problem to me with Religion. Forget the Adam and Eve Vs Evolution, it is the idea of an Omnipotent Despot! I just cannot accept it, and the rest just falls apart under scrutiny anyway..

(December 19, 2009 at 11:50 pm)Northerner Wrote: When I was a child I did believe. But then there was a time when I also believed in the tooth fairy and santa clause... So...

But you are correct. As I grew I lost my faith! It became impossible to accept stories of magic and miracles when the only proof offered was the demand that I have faith! Sorry, not good enough.. Plus, when I try to imagine myself as a being (such as the biblical God), it seems impossible that of all the things I would choose to do is create beings for no other purpose than to worship me! Sounds more like an egotistical dictator, kind of like the ones who perpetuated Religion in the first place!

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

If you can quote, so can I. :p

(December 19, 2009 at 11:50 pm)Northerner Wrote: and the rest just falls apart under scrutiny anyway..

Yet you have blatantly not scrutinised it from the inside.

(December 19, 2009 at 8:17 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: In other words - growing up in a household where something was practiced by someone else and not by you usually means you know jack shit about said practice in actual fact.

You misunderstood, I was a catholic boy myself. I thought so and everyone around me thought so. I read the bible, said my prayers, was told that all answers were in the bible and believed it, even on the issues I from age seven on put forward that my parents couldn't answer.

But hey, here comes the Big FrØd, several years later telling me I was all wrong, I only thought I was believing. Big FrØd has become god himself prying into every thought of every human being, monitoring every contemplation on god and benchmarking it to his holy personal mental diarrhoea.

fr0d0 Wrote:Only if you make a reasoned 'choice' could you ever pretend to understand anyone else who has done so,...

Quite the contrary, reason brought me to atheism at 13, welll to be honest, deism at first.

fr0d0 Wrote:unlike the likes of rabbit who knows very little about what he's talking about when it comes to faith, in fact he's pretty ignorant. In these times he's in good company with eloquent fools like Dawkins to follow.

Oh, ad hominem you naughty christian. Go read your bible over again. And go and consult your buddy Arcanus on what to do next, maybe copy some more Arcanus texts you cannot get your head around.

(December 20, 2009 at 7:51 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Yet you have blatantly not scrutinised it from the inside.

What is there to Scrutinize? Do I really need to read Leviticus a thousand times to find the "hidden meaning" or can I come to the conclusion after a few reads that it was all drivel? The stories in the bible really do not stand up to any scrutiny at all! They just do not make any sense to anyone who looks at them objectively.

We used to own 2 copies of the bible in our house, plus the ones in school would get opened every week. I read that book more than any other book to date. Thankfully a lot of it is now seeping out of my system thanks to old age (I am 33) and I am finally losing my Catholic guilt

(December 20, 2009 at 7:51 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Yet you have blatantly not scrutinised it from the inside.

It seems to me both Northerner and I have scrutinised christianity from the inside. Yet christianity could not deliver some sense in original sin, unhealed amputees, torture in the bible, condonement of slavery by the church based on the bible, priests violating children and covering up, the doubtful historicity of Jesus, the fabrication of cosmogony, the denial of evidence for evolution, the special pleading that is ubiquitous in theology, inquisition, Galileo's encounter with the church, the total absence of a proces of falsification/verification, the impossibility to compare objective evidence across religions and hundreds other products of the christian heritage.

I take it that before christianity you have scrutinised hinduism, buddhism, zoroastrianiism, taoism, mormonism buddhism, judaism, jainism, sikkhism, confucianism, mohism, masai mythology, mazdakism, shaktism, mandaeism, sufism, hermeticism, jehova witnessing, macumba, siberian shamanism and polynesian mythology. From the inside, that is.

(December 20, 2009 at 9:39 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Quite the contrary, reason brought me to atheism at 13, welll to be honest, deism at first.

Nothing more needs to be said.

(December 20, 2009 at 4:24 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(December 20, 2009 at 9:39 am)Purple Rabbit Wrote: Quite the contrary, reason brought me to atheism at 13, welll to be honest, deism at first.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Your opinion. One that I am not going to guess the deeper meaning of in still many more incoherent silly postings of yours.

So are you silencing yourself now? (rhetorically speaking)

Oh, and please do elaborate on hinduism, buddhism, zoroastrianiism, taoism, mormonism buddhism, judaism, jainism, sikkhism, confucianism, mohism, masai mythology, mazdakism, shaktism, mandaeism, sufism, hermeticism, jehova witnessing, macumba, siberian shamanism and polynesian mythology.