The other day I’m having a drink with a friend and she starts on about the Pope thing and I tell her: “Yeah, I read the speech but I didn’t write anything about it.”
Actually, I read it very closely with a view to doing just that but, as an atheist, concluded that there was really nothing to write about, except to say: listen guys, don’t worry about it, because, you know, THERE’S NOBODY THERE!
Of course, they’re not going to fall for that one, are they — scientists and modern philosophers have been telling them the same thing without avail since the Enlightenment.
Fact is, they want to believe it, don’t they? And that’s fine: I have no problem with other people’s beliefs, even though, in my opinion, religion — any religion — is the ultimate sting. I think: let them be stung.
So look, I have to tell my friend to forget about the Pope thing. To my Muslim friends (I have many and they know and respect my views, which is more than I can say for the few Christians I count as friends) I say, if the Pope’s speech upset you, forget it, take strength from your faith, ask yourself: can words, or cartoons for that matter, harm the Prophet?
Outside of friendship, as a secularist, what I say is that everything, faiths and deities included, is, in a secular society (which accurately describes the society I live in, although sometimes it seems that I’m the only one in it) open to discussion and sometimes criticism. And if that strikes you as simplistic and dismissive then you’ve got my view on the subject nailed to the cross (sorry, couldn’t resist that one).
Because the whole “faith” thing, although it doesn’t hold scientific water, is in a very real and dangerous sense water-tight: If you’re a secularist and you’ve ever tried arguing the non-existence of a supernatural God with a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew you’ll know exactly what I mean. You can’t do it, can you? Because faith precludes reason: “well, look, you can say what you like but I know God exists because I believe he does”.
What the Pope said about Islam was that it is incompatible with reason, because some medieval Christian bigot said it was a faith of violence. The pot calls the kettle black and, while they’re arguing about it, the water goes cold.
The main agenda of the speech, however, wasn’t about about Islam versus Christianity. It was about the war — and by that I mean the very real conflict — between faith and reason, between religion and secular humanism.
I’m over it.
Galloway 
I am always bogged down when it comes to organized religion vs athiesm. If we truly beleive that we are animals with no beginning or end, then why did we keep on (re)inventing religion. We dreamt about the moon and the stars… and now we are making strides to reach them. I have no doubt that one day we will make space travell a reality and we might even meet aliens. Religions are mostly silent about such possiblities, yet we assume that, that is what they say.
On a similar note, the majority of us , beleive in some form of religion (even the scientist), I think its only a matter of time before we find empirical evidence of GOD, until then we will just beleieve.
I heard some where
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”
Galloway,
not to undermine any thing you said and probably not even related to what you were talking about.
The idea of God is, in my opinion, a natural bolt-hole for the human condition: it is uncomfortable to think that the buck stops with us, so we conceptualise a “big boss”, a creator, a guiding light, a “buffer”.
I understand totally the need to believe in a supernatural entity, something above and beyond reason. However, logic tells me that if such an entity were to exist it would be discoverable via reason, of necessity — otherwise there would be no point in its existence — and hence could not be above reason.
Therefore the idea of the supernatural — i.e. an entity beyond reason — is a nonsense, a vicious circle.
If God existed he would give us more than faith on which to base our belief in him. But I guess that’s what all the atheists say.
I’m just a man, Brian, and as such I harbour no aspirations to immortality; I deal in the currency of this life and the concerns of the next I leave to those (and they enjoy my utmost respect) who believe in it.
Nice to talk.
Ok. There’s no God you say. Thus there is no Devil.
So.
How do you explain the ‘sulphur’ stench at the Untied Nations today?
Surely Hugo Chaves hasn’t gone Crazy…
As there is good (“god”) in the hearts of men, so there is evil (the “devil”).
But there is nothing supernatural about either ; indeed, both are attributive of nature and, therefore, of humanity.
Incidentally: “Untied Nations” — clever word-play.