Militant secularisation

[G4Z]

As it 'appens, I'm planning an intense bit of worship in a couple of hours, when the wife gets home, involving some serious meditation of bacon, mushrooms, spag and a cheese sauce in a kind-of cheesy carbonara.

So I'm glad to know my soul is saved, or at least my stomach will be happy.

I bless you in the name of the carbonara, the meatball and the mushroom.

[Saracen]

I bless you in the name of the carbonara, the meatball and the mushroom.

Hmmm. Meatballs.

That reminds me - get 'em out of the freezer Friday. Meatball pasta bake Saturday.

As you can tell, I'm a serious adherent. I'm even the possessor of a decent quantity of '00' flour .... and a pasta machine.

[TeePee]

Of course. I was after the source and context of the quote.

Jesus was the first Klansman.

[Phage]

Jesus was the first Klansman.

Yes indeed still not greatly informed !

[TeePee]

It's a reference to the KKK belief in christian supremacy, used to point out that the KKK has their roots in christianity.

[Phage]

But what possible justification for the quote could there be ?

[TeePee]

That the KKK believe that a guy named Jesus existed, years ago who believed christians were superior to other people?

According to the biblical account of the myth, he did believe that Jews were superior to others.

Something of a disconnect with the KKK's anti-semitism.

Certainly this is an example of a strongly christian group who are against civil rights.

[Galant]

It's a reference to the KKK belief in christian supremacy, used to point out that the KKK has their roots in christianity.

It's also complete drivel. There was nothing strongly Christian about them. As Phage pointed out, there is no justifiable basis for this nonsense. It's a thoughtless, throw-away comment at best. The idea that Christ was the first Klansman has as much bearing as would claims of responsibility against TeePee if a group reading things he wrote then went out, in flat contradiction to his ideas, and killed people he had not mentioned, for reasons he had never espoused.

[TeePee]

There was nothing strongly Christian about them.

They weren't True Scotsmen...

[TheAnimus]

It's also complete drivel. There was nothing strongly Christian about them. As Phage pointed out, there is no justifiable basis for this nonsense. It's a thoughtless

Ok, so they where abusing their religion by using it as justifications for their hatred?

Now, please justify why someone should discriminate against gays?

You claim that by not allowing a couple of bigots to practice their bulling, the religion was eroded. I can't help but feel if the we were a century ago, you'd be saying that the KKK should be allowed to pratice their art without having us secularists persecute them....

Can you see why I have contempt for your beliefs, because that is how they look to me?

[Whiternoise]

(Snipped bits)

Agreed, and I understand (broadly) scientific method, but I think you're missing my point. Suppose, 1000 years ago, someone had said "I believe in gamma rays". Scientific "method" of the time (had it existed as such) would have found no evidence for it, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It just means they lacked the knowledge and equipment to detect them.

I was also drawing a distinction between religion and God, because in my view, the two are not necessarily synonymous. It is quite consistent for every religion on earth to be wrong, yet for some transcendental, "supernatural" power to exist, and perhaps, to have planned the universe. God, or something that to us might as well be God, may exist, and we just don't know what to look for, or have the means to detect it, scientifically.

God, or some transcendental power, may exist, and it may be outside the universe as we know it. And we may be as likely to understand it, or even detect it, as an amoeba is of understanding quantum mechanics.

If it does (and it's a sizeable "if" in my opinion), then it is for all practical purposes, "supernatural", but that may simply indicate a fundamental lack of understanding of the real nature of the context of the universe on our part. Just because a jet airliner is "supernatural" to an amoeba's level of comprehension doesn't mean they don't exist, or that there's actually anything supernatural about them.

Do I believe in religions? Frankly, no, but I don't preclude the possibility that one is absolutely right, or that most are on to something, even if the terminology is ancient. I think it's implausible, but not impossible, that one or more religions are broadly right. The Bible, if written today, would, I suspect, be written somewhat differently even if the "lessons" were the same.

My point was that sure, explaining modern physics to an Egyptian would be met with blank stares. As Clarke famously said:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

So of course we should not be complacent to assume that we know everything. Scientists are now content to accept that we don't know anything, but the difference is that we have generally stopped turning to supernatural explanations.

We have reasonable theories to cover most of the observable universe, and we've whittled it down to big questions. Contrast this to Galileo's time when we didn't even have a firm grasp of mechanics or earlier when it was reasonable to assume that the Sun was a God. I would argue that the only thing that is left to supernatural chance is that of the Big Bang. The rest of physics is a matter of reconciling theories and building bigger telescopes. Even Unification (the melding of the Standard Model and General Relativity) will probably be solved eventually, via theoretical means.

To me the question of free will is far more important than whether God exists or not. If the universe is deterministic then what you do on a large scale is pointless, but doesn't matter to you personally (because you can't tell). Note that a deterministic standpoint means that judgement day and so on is a pointless idea - you physically cannot change what you do, even if you think you can.

Is God omniscient or blind? If the universe was created to specification then, again, the idea of divine judgement is useless and we needn't worry about what we do in life, or whether God exists because it makes no difference. If God is blind and just pushed the big red button, then does it matter anyway? Similarly this all assumes that humanity is somehow important in the long term.

And now you get to the question - well what happened before the universe? I have no idea, and neither does anybody else. Does it even make sense to ask what happens before time started?

And interesting you mention the pooliverse, Douglas Adams to the rescue!

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there's plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that's a very dangerous thing to say.