One for Barry

[Isis]

sounds like you know already he wants everyone to believe the same as him an you just want confirmation of your "fact"

I wonder where I could have picked up the idea that Barry thinks the billions of religious people around the world should believe the same as him rather than be entitled to their own beliefs.

It's no longer sufficient to allow people of faith to maintain that they should be allowed to follow their tenets in peace

religion.....no longer provides whatever benefits may have provoked its creation and adoption.

[Isis]

Clearly there are emotions involved - I'm not an automaton - but that isn't 'emotion' as in 'you're being emotional about this'.

If you say so.

No energy wasted.

No hypertension - blood pressure on the low side, last time I was tested.

Glad to hear it.

Don't agree that I can't change things. A single post might make one person examine something which previously they had taken for granted. That's a change.

Especially if you post the same thing over and over and over again for years, ad nauseam.

Should I tell the Pope to start worrying?

[Barry Shnikov]

If you say so.



Glad to hear it.



Especially if you post the same thing over and over and over again for years, ad nauseam.

Should I tell the Pope to start worrying?

If you are really ad nauseated by my posts - don't read them! (Seems to be a technique popular with many other forumites...)

[Isis]

This is something I know from my own - um - reading and learning over my lifetime.

Bit vague innit?

You will have - I suspect - noticed that I also fulminate against ridiculous claims of all supernatural types - homeopathy to spiritualism, and beyond! And because they are ridiculous, I ridicule them.

You can ridicule them all you want - it'll be like water off a duck's back as they laugh all the way to the bank. If you seriously want to challenge that industry, you'll need to step up from petty ridicule.

[Isis]

If you are really ad nauseated by my posts - don't read them! (Seems to be a technique popular with many other forumites...)

It may be wise.

After reading your comment about changing things with your posts, it occurred to me that the change may not occur in the way you hope.

Previously I had no time for organised religion, had low tolerance of anyone trying to persuade me to return to my faith or convert to another one and was positively livid when I discovered how much religion was involved with my daughter's school when I specifically sent her to a non-denominational school to avoid it.

However, when you make extreme, unfair and unbalanced posts about religion (dismissing the whole of religion based on very extreme examples and ignoring the fact that most religious people get on with their life happily, mind their own business and harm no-one) you provoke me to defend religion.

If I end up returning to the fold and reaffirming my Baptism or whatever, I'm blaming you, Mister.

(don't worry, I wont ask you to be Godfather)

[Rocky]

What a 'fun' thread.. Isis you've done a brilliant job on here, but surely you realise that it's pointless and just a waste of your time? Barry draws people into discussions of this type just so that he can use his theological background and intellect to ridicule their beliefs - just as he gets involved in, or starts threads, on law based subjects to get some validation for himself. Although, where on Earth he finds time to practice law I have no idea, as it seems he spends most of his day, every day, on the forum or trawling news sites and TV schedules to find something on religion to complain about. His hatred of all things religious defines his life and like a cancer it's eating him away from the inside.. which is fine, except he seeks to spread that disease like an epidemic wherever he gets the chance. And do you know what? Despite all that, people on here not only tolerate him but some even venerate him. The latter of course have no real intellect of their own, so they latch onto his viewpoint in the hope that the afterglow of what comes out of that place where the sun don't usually shine will bathe them in his majesty...

So, my advice is not to bother in the future. I know his single minded, blinkered and prejudiced views makes you angry - and I know that you post to create a balance so that people on here aren't just bombarded with his vitriolic attack on all things holy.... BUT, most don't care and don't appreciate what you are trying to do. So save yourself a lot of time and energy and let him get on with it... He's a small man, so he ain't going to have any real effect on people with any common sense - and the others, well more fool them...

It is not rational to detest religion when you are under absolutely no obligation to participate in it. I am afraid you do not come across as rational in relation to this issue, although you try hard to find rational justifications for your opinions. It comes across to me that this is an entirely emotional issue for you.

Those days are now a dim and distant memory. I can't imagine why anyone would still be spitting nails over the subject on a regular basis when they're pushing 50, instead of just letting go and moving on.
.

It's because he has nothing else in his life of any real value, so crusading against religion gives him a purpose. Why else would someone spend so much time on something that annoys them so much? Same with the law thing and all of his intellectual meanderings. The poor guy is just looking for some purpose in his life and some validation.... now Christianity, THAT would give him all that..

I don't have enough time to read, consider and post - so i do the post bit and pay lip service to the other two..

Well that would (partly) explain why the majority of your posts are just drivel.

Don't agree that I can't change things. A single post might make one person examine something which previously they had taken for granted. That's a change.

Based on everything I've seen thus far, and also based on the posts of intelligent and informed people like Isis, you ARE changing things Barry. People are now starting to realise that militant atheists are as fundementally blinkered and intellectualy corrupt as any religious sect and what you're doing is encouraging people to prefer to be associated with the concept of the purity of religious belief than the vitriol of militant atheistic belief. Well done old boy, well done! Please, keep it up!

If you are really ad nauseated by my posts - don't read them! (Seems to be a technique popular with many other forumites...)

Or you could do what he does and put him on ignore. But of course you're actually bright enough to know Isis, that it is only the intellectual challenged that take that route...

It may be wise.

After reading your comment about changing things with your posts, it occurred to me that the change may not occur in the way you hope.

Previously I had no time for organised religion, had low tolerance of anyone trying to persuade me to return to my faith or convert to another one and was positively livid when I discovered how much religion was involved with my daughter's school when I specifically sent her to a non-denominational school to avoid it.

However, when you make extreme, unfair and unbalanced posts about religion (dismissing the whole of religion based on very extreme examples and ignoring the fact that most religious people get on with their life happily, mind their own business and harm no-one) you provoke me to defend religion.

If I end up returning to the fold and reaffirming my Baptism or whatever, I'm blaming you, Mister.

(don't worry, I wont ask you to be Godfather)

'nuff said?

By the way for all of those who are going to attack this post (and we know who the little Barry wannabes are, don't we...) Go ahead, I ain't going to read it again and I'm not getting drawn into further discussions.. This thread was actually about Barry and his points of view and I'm therefore entitled to post on it to air my opinion based on what has been said - so save your time and do something more positive over the w/e..

[Double Trouble]

I know his single minded, blinkered and prejudiced views makes you angry....He's a small man, so he ain't going to have any real effect on people with any common sense...It's because he has nothing else in his life of any real value, so crusading against religion gives him a purpose... his intellectual meanderings...just looking for some purpose in his life and some validation.... the majority of your posts are just drivel....fundementally blinkered and intellectualy corrupt...intellectual challenged.

Why can't you put your point across without resorting to insults and personal attacks? If you took out all the insults and irrelevant bile it would give your posts some gravitas and take us seconds rather than hours to read through them.

Chef made the point very well in the Rocky VI thread, but it's been deleted. That's a shame because it summed up very well how insults just detract from your point, if in fact you have one in the first place.

Oh and Rocky. Happy Easter.

[Tiger Feet]

We've had this out before.

It's a typical faith-head mistake to assert that atheism is 'a belief' or 'a belief system'

Most people ('faith-heads') I've conversed with about atheism or general reasons for not being part of organised religion don't bother about defining the term, they merely say they feel sorry for those without faith because they won't get into heaven. I don't mind this view because it doesn't affect me directly. I also wouldn't really care if they termed atheism as a belief system because it doesn't affect me directly either. People believe different things, feel different things, think different things, have different priorities...so what?

Again, you're missing the point. There doesn't need to be any evidence against the existence of god. The choice with which each of us is faced is whether to believe in god in the teeth of that absence of evidence - which is an act of faith - or whether to consider that absence of evidence and conclude that god is an unlikely and unnecessary condition.

It may be unnecessary for you, but for others it is the only source of comfort they have. For some it allows them to be part of a community where the majority of people are good and decent and will say hello just because you're there and believe, generally, the same thing. It provides comfort when times are hard and someone or somewhere to go for support. If someone loses a loved one and prefers to think they'll meet them again in heaven, then it's nice they find that thought comforting and entirely necessary that they are able to practice their faith.

This is the sense in which I used the word in my original post: religion encourages people to be credulous; believers are told that they must not question the tenets of the faith; that they must do what they are told ("don't use condoms");

People pick and choose the parts of their religion that suit them. Supermarkets encourage us, through posters and product placement, to eat 'healthily' but people who shop there still buy junk food.

that the more difficult it is to believe something the greater the achievement when you are able to do it (the wafer and the wine literally turn into the body and blood of jesus, no matter how yukky that sounds and no matter that throughout the journey from lips to stomach they always retain the exact and identical flavour and texture of - um - wine and wafer),

OK, this was one of the main reasons I completely abandoned Catholicism, because I personally don't want to be part of something I can't believe in. But just because you're meant to believe it doesn't mean anyone actually does!

that other people's interpretation of the bible is to be accepted notwithstanding ("the good book says, give and ye shall receive, so you have to give me $1,000 and the lord will give you back a hundredfold - the good book doesn't lie!") and so forth.

There are a million scams like this which have nothing to do with religion or the bible ('send me your bank details because you've won the lottery in a country you've never been to, on a ticket you never bought'). Being gullible and greedy isn't directly linked to having faith in a god.

My criticism isn't that religion (defined here as a belief in magical or supernatural divinities) can never have produced any benefit for humans; my criticism is that it no longer provides whatever benefits may have provoked its creation and adoption.

There are still many benefits for many people and you're not obliged to be one of them. How great to be free!

Religion does demand conformity. Res ipsa loquitur - if there is no requirement to comply with a set of rules and precepts there can't be a religion in the first place.

If I could, I'd link to a story of a young girl who was kicked to death by a group of thugs because she was dressed as a goth...nothing to do with religion, but the excuse was that she didn't conform. Oh, and they were drunk, so that's ok then.

But religious teachers of that ilk don't encourage their flock to go out and check to see whether the things they are told are wrong.
They are told that people who try to make them see things from a rational point of view are tempters, spawn of satan, involved in a conspiracy to turn good christian people away from the path of righteousness, and they should be on their guard against them.

So yes, religion is responsible here. It's easy to see that if these parents had not acquired a hopelessly useless understanding of the way the universe works they would have taken their daughter to a doctor and she would be alive today. No doubt they are consoling themselves with the contented thought that it's all part of god's plan.

Did you see the picture of the little girl, drawing on the pavement in a festival last year? She looked so happy.

The situation makes me puke.

Yes, it's horrible, but the blame belongs to her parents. They are grown adults with free will and the freedom to think for themselves. You can't absolve them of their decisions.

If you are really ad nauseated by my posts - don't read them! (Seems to be a technique popular with many other forumites...)

Don't get all defensive...you do want a debate, right? And you do get humour (I can tell).

However, when you make extreme, unfair and unbalanced posts about religion (dismissing the whole of religion based on very extreme examples and ignoring the fact that most religious people get on with their life happily, mind their own business and harm no-one) you provoke me to defend religion.

If I end up returning to the fold and reaffirming my Baptism or whatever, I'm blaming you, Mister.

(don't worry, I wont ask you to be Godfather)

and what a shame that your posts have been hijacked and used in a way which completely goes against their contents. Hopefully Barry and DS read your humour and opinions in the respectful, non-angry way you read theirs

[Dreadful Scathe]

You can ridicule them all you want - it'll be like water off a duck's back as they laugh all the way to the bank. If you seriously want to challenge that industry, you'll need to step up from petty ridicule.

Petty ridicule may affect a change with some people, if they realise they agree with the ridicule

However, when you make extreme, unfair and unbalanced posts about religion (dismissing the whole of religion based on very extreme examples and ignoring the fact that most religious people get on with their life happily, mind their own business and harm no-one) you provoke me to defend religion.

Well, to be fair - most posts about religion on this forum have some extreme examples of weird behaviour - most of which any sane person would agree are bad. The fact that they descend into anti-Barry threads due are generally down to a clash of personalities because some to want to attack the person rather than the opinion. That way lies escalation. Why don't we all take the stairs in future

[Barry Shnikov]

Another bunch of people who have been persuaded by beliefs which they characterise as religious into a stupid and dangerous cause of action.

Most important detail?

There are four children involved.

If there is a mudslide, that will bring the child death toll in this thread to five.

Can there be any doubt that religious belief can be dangerous? What would you do if you got the chance to talk to these children? Would anyone not try to persuade them that what their mummy and daddy have told them is wrong?

[Isis]

Can there be any doubt that religious belief can be dangerous?

Crossing the road can be dangerous, you may get knocked down.
Walking along the street can be dangerous, you may get mugged.
Eating your dinner can be dangerous, you may choke on your spag bol.
Sitting in your own home watching TV can be dangerous, a light aircraft may crash into the building and blow you to smithereens.

Anything in life can be dangerous, so what is your overall point about religious beliefs and what should be done about them?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Crossing the road can be dangerous, you may get knocked down.
Walking along the street can be dangerous, you may get mugged.
Eating your dinner can be dangerous, you may choke on your spag bol.
Sitting in your own home watching TV can be dangerous, a light aircraft may crash into the building and blow you to smithereens.

Those are examples of accidents; bad religious or spiritual advice, with no bearing on reality that causes a death is certainly NOT an accident. You really should know better

[Isis]

Those are examples of accidents; bad religious or spiritual advice, with no bearing on reality that causes a death is certainly NOT an accident. You really should know better

Ok, lets go for examples of non-accidental, non-religious danger:

A parent allows their 4 year old, with no road sense, to play alone beside a busy road resulting in the child being knocked down.

A parent allows their teenage daughter to walk home alone at night through a bad neighbourhood and the girl gets attacked.

Poor food practices in a supermarket caring only about profit, result in a family contracting food poisoning and the youngest child dies of it.

Poor advice from NHS 24 leads to a delay in medical treatment resulting in a toddler dying of meningitis.

Dangerous advice occurs in all walks of life so I ask again, what is the overall point being made about religious beliefs and what are you suggesting should be done about them?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Ok, lets go for examples of non-accidental, non-religious danger:

ok, bad religious advice (prayer will heal) that
causes a death (we dont need a doctor, God is here for our child)

we are comparing this to..

A parent allows their 4 year old, with no road sense, to play alone beside a busy road resulting in the child being knocked down.

Simply bad parenting. If the parent firmly believed that playng alone on a busy road was the right thing to let happen due to what they had learned from somewhere and despite other evidence - then there would be some similarity ...otherwise, no.

A parent allows their teenage daughter to walk home alone at night through a bad neighbourhood and the girl gets attacked.

Same as last one.

Poor food practices in a supermarket caring only about profit, result in a family contracting food poisoning and the youngest child dies of it.

Simple capitalism. The supermarket is to blame. If they were to teach that poor food practicies are something to strive for, despite other evidence, and people took them up on this advice, then there would be some similarity. Otherwise, no.

Poor advice from NHS 24 leads to a delay in medical treatment resulting in a toddler dying of meningitis.

Simple human error. I doubt anyone is to blame much here. If only we had one doctor per child.

Dangerous advice occurs in all walks of life so I ask again, what is the overall point being made about religious beliefs and what are you suggesting should be done about them?

I'm not suggesting anything. But now that you ask, the parents of the 11 year old who died will not be held legally accountable for the death of their child - but there are hundreds of other forms of neglect that would have seen them held accountable. Why is religion different? Although, I'm going to suggest that in this case, it wasn't religion that was to blame, but stupidity; and you can't legislate against that. However, spreading what amounts to false information that may result in a death (prayer heals) is surely wrong in some way?

[stewart38]

Although, where on Earth he finds time to practice law I have no idea, as it seems he spends most of his day, every day, on the forum or trawling news sites and TV schedules to find something on religion to complain about. His hatred of all things religious defines his life and like a cancer it's eating him away from the inside.. which is fine, except he seeks to spread that disease like an epidemic wherever he gets the chance.

I wonder why my solicitor doesnt call me back

Another bunch of people who have been persuaded by beliefs which they characterise as religious into a stupid and dangerous cause of action.

Most important detail?

There are four children involved.

If there is a mudslide, that will bring the child death toll in this thread to five.

Can there be any doubt that religious belief can be dangerous? What would you do if you got the chance to talk to these children? Would anyone not try to persuade them that what their mummy and daddy have told them is wrong?

[Isis]

so really, it looks like religion WAS the cause.

Although, I'm going to suggest that in this case, it wasn't religion that was to blame, but stupidity; and you can't legislate against that.

Make your mind up will you.

However, spreading what amounts to false information that may result in a death (prayer heals) is surely wrong in some way?

Of course it is wrong, in any walk of life, to spread false information that may result in death. What are these extreme examples, related to religion, supposed to tell us about religion and religious people overall?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Make your mind up will you.

Im giving you the benefit of your doubt

Of course it is wrong, in any walk of life, to spread false information that may result in death. What are these extreme examples, related to religion, supposed to tell us about religion and religious people overall?

I don't know, what ?

[Barry Shnikov]

Another religious nutter. A rather more harmless one.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to quash the rumour that it was me dressed as Darth Vader...

[Barry Shnikov]

I wonder why my solicitor doesnt call me back

If he doesn't, write to the complaints partner in that firm. Or change him for one who does. It's not something you have to put up with, you know.

[Tiger Feet]

Can there be any doubt that religious belief can be dangerous? What would you do if you got the chance to talk to these children? Would anyone not try to persuade them that what their mummy and daddy have told them is wrong?

How do you suggest erradicating these kinds of cults? There will always be someone setting themself up as a guru (even Rocky is trying it!) and people will be attracted to them. How do you stop that?

Why have a problem with the millions of people who quietly follow their own faith? Do you really believe that they support these kinds of extreme behaviour any more than you do? You were annoyed about the forum censoring swear words...you're not suggesting censoring religion then, are you?

BTW thought it was quite funny in that article about the Russian cult when it said they were planning on coming out after the end of the world...erm