h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Norwich is one of the safest cities in the country. Brighton and Hove has at been rated as one of the happiest place in the country. Cambridge is full of theologians so it's no surprise to find out it's godless.

my understanding of blasphemy was, it was only blasphemy if you were of the same religion

as none of us claim to be members of your own twisted private religion we cannot be accused of blasphemy by you.

and if i want to compare your god to a large male chicken, i can do so, and its not blasphemy

<>

<< Care to give us the benefit of your insight and give us the details of this coming war?>>

it will start with puffs of green glowing gas jetting out from mars

DUM DUM-DUM

then the first of the missiles will land, long and cilindrical and glowing hot, with stange sounds of movement comming from inside

DIDDLE-DIDDLE

the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one, but still they come

UH-LAHHH

Oo. I have the Jeff Wayne album. Richard Burton's narration is wonderfully creepy

And the overdriven guitar heat ray is simply amazing

"At the time the Census was carried out, there was an internet campaign that encouraged people to answer the religion question "Jedi Knight". The number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000 (0.7 per cent of the population)."

Gif

>>"Outside London, the counties with the highest proportion of Christians are Durham, Merseyside and Cumbria, each with 82 per cent or more."
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census...profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp
"The districts with the highest proportions of people with no religion are Norwich, Brighton and Hove and Cambridge, all with over one-quarter."

That was in 2001<<

Is it too much to hope that you have a point?

I really, really doubt that more than 82% of London's population is Christian. For a start it's home to the largest Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities in the country. Also, large cities tend to have high proportions of atheists.

Inner city areas, as I've previously alluded to, tend to be bastions of faith in this country. They're also where the education system in this country breaks down (and I speak as someone who has worked with or in inner-city schools my entire adult life) and education levels are extremely low. Ignorant people gravitate towards religion.

Conversely, smaller cities tend to have a more even wealth distribution and more successful education systems. Better educated people leads to less faith in a deity.

It´s a fact clearly seen in Spain, the more educated and economicaly developed a country is, the less religious.

Religious traditions are kept because they coincide with holidays.
Now in Easter many will go to the beach or to any other place to enjoy sunny days and traditional easter food. SOme will watch the "procesiones", other will punish their body publicly, other will fast...but for the mayority, religious festivities are days to rest from work, nothing else.

And that´s is so despite the huge power of church here.

"Religious traditions are kept because they coincide with holidays."

And because it is, well, tradition. Cultural religion (cf. Dawkins and his cultural christianity). Indeed there is a mindset that says being English (for example) *means* being Christian (and CofE at that). It has got a lot to do with mythic golden ages, cricket, warm beer, sunny sunday afternoons, roast beef, the Queen, etc etc.
Many of these will put Christianity down as their religion, but they aren't real believers like warner. I suppose that sort of cultural christianity is the nearest thing to a secular religion, they're in it for social and nationalistic reasons, not because of the supreme being myth - that just gets accepted as a corollary.

IOt's a pity that warner is in scattergun mode, throwing out challenges and then failing to follow them up. It would have been interesting to carry on the moral restraint debate.

It's an observable fact that Atheists are as capable of having a moral conscience as any believer. We can argue about proportions,we can argue about different moral topics...but it's undeniable that not every Atheist eats babies. Why not? The religious take appears to be that god/religion provides some form of restraint. But clearly this doesn't apply to Atheists. So what, if anything is 'restraining' us?

So do the religious maybe have the wrong model? Maybe we aren't fundamentally evil beings who need to be restrained. Maybe we haven't fallen from grace. Maybe Original Sin doesn't feature. Maybe there's no urging us towards evil.

It seems to me that it must be possible to come up with perfectly naturalistic explanations of why people don't always behave badly...and for why they often do.

Yes, of course you're right that every thought and action we do has an intention behind it.

The REAL meaning of hypocrisy is:
When we state we have a religion but we don't sincerely intend to follow it at all.

Some people suggest that a hypocrite is somebody who makes actions that aren't in agreement with their faith. If that person sincerely believes, they are NOT hypocrites but are experiencing weakness, as all people do to some extent.
Do you see the difference?

So the obvious question is...what's faith *for*?

plastering over the cracks in our understanding of reality for those to whom the answer "don't know" is not acceptable.

Giford <"At the time the Census was carried out, there was an internet campaign that encouraged people to answer the religion question "Jedi Knight". The number of people who stated Jedi was 390,000 (0.7 per cent of the population).">

Indeed, there are more Jedi Knights in the UK than Jews.

But, hold on I hear you cry: You are comparing the followers of a real religion with the followers of a made-up religion...well, yes, but if the Jewish community *think* their religion isn't made up then I think the comparison is valid enough.

Br Stealth Azathoth

No wonder it's full of people who are gay all the time!

Ed
>>what's faith *for*?<<
If you looked at that link I gave on "civilisations" from the BBC religion website, you would have seen that Judaism spread quite far around the world reaching its peak, and then completely collapsed around 50BC, and then we have John the Baptist and Jesus, coming in a time of ignorance and rebellion against Judaism.

I think you know the rest of the story from 2000 years ago about how Judaism was revived and alongside present day Christianity was born.
The Supreme being has always made Divine guidance available to mankind, one way or another. As many people point out, it would be totally unfair for a person's destiny to be "a life sentence", if the law was not commonly available to us. And don't forget that if mankind did not have these major faiths in God Almighty, we would very likely be extinct, by now, by our own injustice and folly.
ie. Greed has been made present in the minds of man, and he is most certainly violent in his love for wealth.

A bit like horsecarts then, it used to be useful but is a bit outdated nowadays?

Hi Warner,

>If you looked at that link I gave on "civilisations" from the BBC religion website, you would have seen that Judaism spread quite far around the world reaching its peak, and then completely collapsed around 50BC, and then we have John the Baptist and Jesus, coming in a time of ignorance and rebellion against Judaism.

Umm... actually, Judaism is at its maximum extent until around 1500 AD, and doesn't appear on the map at all between 300 BC and 100 AD.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/tools/civilisations/index.shtml

>And don't forget that if mankind did not have these major faiths in God Almighty, we would very likely be extinct, by now, by our own injustice and folly.

Where did you get that idea from?

Gif

Hi Ictoan,

>I suppose that sort of cultural christianity is the nearest thing to a secular religion

I recently had to fill out visa applications for a couple of colleagues. There was a space for religion. When asked, both replied "Well... put C of E."

Gif

Hi HI,

>large cities tend to have high proportions of atheists.
>Inner city areas, as I've previously alluded to, tend to be bastions of faith in this country.

Hmm. But don't large cities tend to be the ones with inner city areas?

Gif

Just to correct myself slighty:

Judaism is shown as unchanged between 750 AD and around 1500 - I didn't mean to imply it was growing until 1500.

What is surprising is the way that Judaism 'jumps around' rather than growing and shrinking like the other religions. That and how much of its history is based in central Asia.

Gif