Comments on: Rising chorus of alarm from church leaders at “aggressive secularism”.

By: manigen

manigen — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 11:18:31 +0000

Berber Anna said: “I’ve read about people saying things like “if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me” as an argument for not learning any foreign languages”

And then they go on to argue that the only true bible is the King James, and they don’t care what some old greek bible said.

By: Berber Anna

Berber Anna — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:21:37 +0000

Tash: Your partner’s theory would make a very readable SF story, I think, but it’s linguistically faulty. The reason Mary and Joseph sound like English names is that they are the English translation of the Biblical names Meryam and Yosef (which were perfectly ordinary Hebrew names at that time). In my native language, Dutch, they’re translated as Maria and Josef, and there’s probably many more translations out there.
It’s interesting that the translation issue doesn’t occur to many people, though. I’ve read about people saying things like ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me’ as an argument for not learning any foreign languages…

By: Nopke

Nopke — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:15:14 +0000

It’s not religion that is needed, it is the awareness of people regarding theirselves and others that is needed. To be and held responsible for own behaviour and actions. Stronger punishment for those who dont obey this normal rule when it comes to having comitted crime and such.
And as for adoption and such … good screening of all couples is quite normal I think. The fact that others can have childeren without being screened may some think that they are entitled to this as well, but I myself would be more in favor for a screening for all, not just those who wish to adopt, although this is something that will never happen. People get childeren just as easy sometimes as having a new car or such, even more easy than a new pet. As it is such a natural thing apparently … something you should not think about … which they theirselves regret afterwards way too often.

Anyhow .. religion can never be in charge of modern world. Realistic views are necessary, Lots of religions are not realistic at all. I’d prefer them to keep it at home,or inside and use it in a good way to boost/stimulate theirselves to live in this realistic world.
Life is too hard to put all faith in religion .. put some faith in yourself I’d say. And open your eyes. Dreaming is not for daily life. The believers quite often do, although the church leaders don’t .. they have other goals and do look different upon religion, use it for their own wordly goals. As it has been from the old days on already. Let alone a few here and there. The ones who use it in a good way are not the ones I refer to. I aim for the best inside myself as well, in favor of a better world.

By: faye

faye — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:57:18 +0000

Religon does not create morals, people create them for themselves. You don’t need to be religious to be a “good” person, goodness comes from the actions you perform each day.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:33:31 +0000

The first step towards a truly secular society would be to remove all faith schools. Faith schools artificially divide children from each other at a young age and are an anachronism in the 21st century. If parents wish to teach their child about a particular religion then this can easily be done at home. If anyone is interested in this issue there are currently two petitions to be signed on the Prime Ministers No 10 website asking for the abolition of collective worship in schools and the complete abolition of all faith schools.

Don’t think Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor should be complaining this week really since he has just been given a seat in the House of Lords: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5811976.ece

By: Tash

Tash — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 07:02:51 +0000

We don’t really need religion – because there are laws in place to prevent thins happenning that deal out punishment if broken – and what right have the church got to stop equal rights for gay people – if they were to think about what they were saying – then they would realsie they were contridicting thereselves – they say god loves everyone – and something like don’t judge thy neighbour. In the old testament (if i remember correctly from R.S GCSE) it says that a man can divorce his wife but not visa versa – well they didnt moan about that when that got updated so why now when everything is modern do they have to be living in the past with a book that they can’t really prove is real – its about as real as harry potter to people in 10,000 yrs time. My partner has this theory (- which i’m not entirely sure but i’ll write down anyway) that in a 1000 years or so when we have the technology to go around the sun that it may have already happenned and when they did it last time it went wrong and they ended up back in BC – but this time making it BC because one of the astronaughts became pregnant – he says ‘they’re halos opened’ – space helmets, they preformed miracles – paracetamal – in BC the things that we have now would be miraculous. He reckons to that Mary and Joeseph are english american names not (i can’t remember where jesus was born) native of that country names. That’s my partners opinion not mine – i just thought it was interesting. If that was true and the bible was never written i wonder what it would be like today – as it did pay an important part in history with Henry 8th but i think now with all the proof against it they need to stop preaching and picking on gay people, parents who are unwed etc – its modern days now. Thank god they don’t get listened to so much now – otherwise a lot of us would be hung.

Sorry – that’s my rant against the church for today.

By: Berber Anna

Berber Anna — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 05:20:13 +0000

If people need a book and an angry father-figure in the sky to keep them from harming others, I don’t think they were very ‘moral’ to begin with.

We’ve evolved as a social species, so certain moral codes (murdering, raping, stealing and general harmful-to-others forms of behaviour are wrong) are more or less ingrained in us. Which is probably why they’re in the codes/laws of a lot of religions in the first place.
Those elementary rules are a good thing. The arbitrary ones, like exclusion of lbgt people (probably originally a ‘please breed more believers’ thing, I’d think), or the whole ‘magic is evil, let’s ban Harry Potter’ mindset, are what I can’t get behind. Strange, superstitious, outdated rules that aren’t there to avoid harm, but seemingly for no other reason than to create an ‘us vs them’ feeling — those are what I dislike about certain religions.

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:44:06 +0000

I have noticed that the word moral has been spellchecked as Morale in my last post…thought I would point it out before anyone else did.

Tsk!

By: Ken

Ken — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 02:41:47 +0000

A morale centre comes form a centered person not a set of arbitrary rules in a book and enforced and collective compliance enforced by fear and threats!

I am a more morale than most christians I know. I like to live and let live…I dont do it with the exception of gays, muslims, or anyone who disagrees with me.

I am sick of religious leaders thinking they are the only ones in this country who have morales when they are living around 60 to 1500 years behind the rest of us!

By: ScreamingGreenConure

ScreamingGreenConure — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:46:43 +0000

I don’t think anyone is forgetting Judaism or Islam. There was a lot of controversy with shariah arbitration being introduced into the UK recently, was there not?
This article seems to confuse “secular” and “atheist,” in that they think the number of people identifyijng as atheists is important when considering how secular society is. It’s perfectly possible for a religious person to support the idea of a secular society.