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Wanted: A PM who DID NOT go to Oxford – politicalbetting.com

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  • rcs1000 said:

    For the record, it is perfectly possible to make a good holocaust joke:

    https://youtu.be/k_3Q9X03Yeg?t=76

    Gervais might have got if from the same person as Baddiel

    I liked the last one he said "I get accused of arrogance because I don't pray, but what could be more arrogant than asking the God who didn't stop the Holocaust for help finding your car keys"
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,781
    edited February 2022

    On top of those management fees, various other expenses were billed by companies controlled by Captain Tom trustees.

    Not doubting you, link to info? Wonder how much of the £30 million got donated and how much that cost to manage?
  • Andy_JS said:

    "Top Oxford professor Sir John Bell claims Macron and Merkel's trashing of AstraZeneca jab 'probably killed hundreds of thousands of people'

    Mr Macron initially trashed AstraZeneca jab as 'quasi-ineffective' for old people
    German chancellor Angela Merkel echoed doubts by German experts on safety
    In a new programme about the jab, Sir John said they had blood on their hands
    BBC Two's AstraZeneca: A Vaccine For the World?, will air tonight at 9pm"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10459105/EU-leaders-decision-trash-AstraZeneca-jab-killed-hundreds-thousands-people.html

    Yawn.

    This is why Brexit will never be over. Johnny Foreigner is always sticking their foot out so that John Bull tumbles over it in a clownish manner. Never John Bull’s fault of course…
    Not sure how you make that work.

    In the case of Germany, someone invented some bollocks, somewhere in officialdom and then "leaked it" to the press.

    In France, Macron became a self taught expert on COVID and vaccines (as stated by his spin doctors) and mouthed some more nonsense.

    In neither case, could any actual facts be found to substantiate the claims. Just the reverse.
    This is why England has lost her spunk. It was always a big boy what done it and run away.

    It really is tragic to witness.
    You are being needlessly stupid on this. The accusation is that Macron and the German journalist/minister killed their own people by what they said and did. I fail to understand what this has to do with England losing its 'spunk'?
    He is so bitter, as is common in nationalists, that any sense of objectivity is impossible for him to relate to in his pursuit of his divisive attitudes
    It is a little sad that anyone can be so stupid to think a vaccine of all things should be a thing to become nationalistic about (and I include Tories in that), particularly as all pharma companies are about as international as you can get in terms of personnel. I imagine there were probably a fair few Scots in the AZ team, but they are probably not "true" Scots as they live in England and are therefore race traitors.
    One of the funniest elements in the saga was the EU suing the “British” Astra Zeneca Plc when it turned out they actually had to sue the Swedish Astra Zeneca AB as that was who their contract was with….
    That is assuming "they" thought it was "British". Maybe Macron did, or at least thought enough French voters did, so that it was a nice bit of populism to have a pop at what was thought to be a Rosbif company. I am not convinced it was necessarily anti-British by the EU, more of an attempt to cover up red faces in the Commission at their ineptitude in vaccine procurement.
    Since they were bitterly complaining about the British vaccine roll out and not the Swedish one and threatening to block supplies to Britain, not Sweden it’s not a great stretch to conclude it was the British they sought to punish. And couldn’t.
    It is possible, particularly if you wish to view it from a nationalistic perspective, and perhaps there were people in the EU countries in addition to M. Macron who viewed it that way. I think there is significant evidence IIRC that there were also a lot that did not.
    The EMA, despite their staff shortfall caused by relocation did play a very straight bat - the politicians on the other hand panicked and lashed out.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,165
    edited February 2022
    Apologies is already posted: on 28 January the government slipped out an announcement in a blog (!) that the student loan repayment threshold for 2022/23 would be frozen at £27,295. This affects loans taken out in England and Wales which starting from September 2012 onwards.

    The threshold should have risen in line with earnings growth, a pledge given by May in 2017.

    The increase would have been a 4.6% increase (to £28,550).

    The consequence of this freeze is that a graduate earning over the threshold will be paying £113 more than would have been the case had the limit been revalued as per May's pledge.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,807
    edited February 2022
    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!

    Personally i think we are in a simulation of which the origin of which is beyond human imagination or understanding
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    kinabalu said:

    That "trillions and trillions of galaxies" stuff needs to be done in a Brian Cox voice. Speaking of telly, I'm deep into a drama called The Sinner atm and looking forward to completing series 3 tonight. Fantastic (!) performance as the tortured 'heart of gold' Detective by Barry Gardiner. He might be a Chinese spy, and I don't for one minute condone that, but the guy can act.

    There is a long and ignoble history of public schoolboys spying against their own country.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,857

    Off topic,

    I see the Captain Tom Foundation made over £1m last year, but only donated £160k.

    Another £160k was consumed in “management fees”.

    And to think, someone was convicted (in Scotland) of sending a “grossly offensive” tweet about the dead Captain.

    A tweet which, by the way, was far less offensive than Jimmy Carr’s joke about killing gypsies.

    16% is not the lowest ratio of charitable work & donations performed by a charity. There are charities where the charitable bit is not visible using a state of the art microscope.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294

    On top of those management fees, various other expenses were billed by companies controlled by Captain Tom trustees.

    Not doubting you, link to info? Wonder how much of the £30 million got donated and how much that cost to manage?
    https://twitter.com/sensiblehuman96/status/1490695260053377030?s=21

    And

    https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/-/charity-details/5161126/accounts-and-annual-returns
  • There really are too many dogs, aren't there?

    They're even crapping up our nature reserves.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/07/dog-pee-and-poo-harming-nature-reserves-study

    Dog tax, anyone?

    Never trust a person that doesn't like dogs. Always trust a dog that doesn't like a person.
    Some dogs are lovely, some dogs are horrible. A bit like people, I suppose.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,240
    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/07/boycott-jimmy-carr-over-horrid-joke-about-roma-people-says-sajid-javid

    Asked about the comments, Javid told Times Radio they were “horrid”. He added: “I think we all have a right to react to that. And one of the best ways anyone can react to that is show these platforms, what they think about Jimmy Carr by not watching or listening to him, and that will send him a very strong message.”

    So that's two cabinet ministers criticising Jimmy Carr. If they said "personally, I don't find it very funny, but each to their own" then I could understand it. But it's disappointing to hear them saying how other people should behave towards Carr.

    I am still intrigued why 6 weeks after it was releases this has only just become a thing. It was the most watched comedy special on Netflix in 2021, despite only coming out on the 26th Dec.

    Millions watched it, the media will have as its part of their job and nobody commented. Then 6 weeks later it becomes an outrage.
    Because the joke is now being repeated completely out of context. And it's only when out of context that the joke is utterly appalling.
    Of course. Also, find it interesting that the sole focus of the outrage is on the gypsy element, not the Jehovah Witness had it coming part of the routine.

    eek said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/07/boycott-jimmy-carr-over-horrid-joke-about-roma-people-says-sajid-javid

    Asked about the comments, Javid told Times Radio they were “horrid”. He added: “I think we all have a right to react to that. And one of the best ways anyone can react to that is show these platforms, what they think about Jimmy Carr by not watching or listening to him, and that will send him a very strong message.”

    So that's two cabinet ministers criticising Jimmy Carr. If they said "personally, I don't find it very funny, but each to their own" then I could understand it. But it's disappointing to hear them saying how other people should behave towards Carr.

    I am still intrigued why 6 weeks after it was releases this has only just become a thing. It was the most watched comedy special on Netflix in 2021, despite only coming out on the 26th Dec.

    Millions watched it, the media will have as its part of their job and nobody commented. Then 6 weeks later it becomes an outrage.
    Because the joke is now being repeated completely out of context. And it's only when out of context that the joke is utterly appalling.
    Of course. Also, find it interesting that the sole focus of the outrage is on the gypsy element, not the Jehovah Witness had it coming part of the routine.
    I once had some good fun - I got some people really rilled up against Seventh Day Adventists. Foaming at the mouth about their ghastly beliefs and practices. One person even suggest they should have children taken away from them....

    Then I showed them a picture of me helping out at a community event that involved the local Seventh Day Adventist church. When they saw who made up the church, they got very, very upset. With me.....
    As indeed they might - you and your little games.
    Well, if you are going to express bigotry concerning religious minorities, don't be shocked if they turn out to be racial minorities as well.

    Assuming that funky brands of Christianity are white-people-only or that there isn't a nasty history of oppression of such groups.......
    That the reactionary wing of Christianity very much isn't whites only certainly isn't news to me.
    Most religions are "reactionary" in the sense of the not being on the politically/socially progressive side.

    If you are up for condemning religions based on them being reactionary, then you will have to be comfortable with saying that religion X, primarily practised by ethnic minority Y, is a crock of shit.

    Personally, I find condemning other peoples religions somewhere between rude and a waste of time.....
    I split Religion into 2 parts when I think about it or comment on it. The faith in a higher power and the belief system as it applies to life on earth. The faith bit I like. I don't have it but wish I did. I don't find it irrational or to be criticized or mocked in any way. The belief system is also fine by me so long as it's based on equality and tolerance and kindness. If it isn't - and sadly this is sometimes the case - that isn't fine and one shouldn't be shy to say so.
    "I don't have it but wish I did" - interesting. An atheist who wishes he wasn't?

    "that isn't fine and one shouldn't be shy to say so" - do you really criticise the major interpretation of all the Abrahamic religions (for example) ? Brave, if so.
    No, I'm not an atheist. I'm a nothing. A big fat nothing. Yes, I'm ok with criticizing any beliefs propounded by any religion if they get up my nose. I don't think this is brave tbh - but I'll take that label if you insist.
    It's perfectly acceptable to criticise a religion if you think it's wrong. But it's not the fact that that its belief system is not based on equality and tolerance that makes it wrong. The lack of equality and tolerance is because that's the way which those particular believers understand that their Gog wants them to behave.
    Faith isn't a little quirk of a fundamentally straightforward 20th century lifestyle. It is a fundamentally strange belief system - that there is an invisible higher power who requires certain things. Saying 'well that's ok as long as it doesn't fundamentally contradict 21st century western liberal views' rather misses the point.

    There was a Marcus Brigstocke book about this. I got very angry with it. The sub-heading could have been 'ha, ha, look at these people, they don't even conform to 21st century liberal views, they can't possibly be right'. It was such a missed opportunity. If believers are wrong, they are wrong because of the fundamental aspect of their belief that rules of behaviour are handed down by a higher power - not because of the rather secondary consideration that they've misinterpreted those rules. If believers are right - well, who are we to know exactly how the higher power wants us to behave? From my point of view on the outside of religion, if there is a higher power, how am I to have any degree of certainty what the rules are? Maybe those of the 21st century Church of England. Maybe those of the taliban. Maybe those of the Orthodox Jews of North London, or the 16th century puritans, of the Catholic Church of the 9th century AD, or one of the tribal religions of South America.

    We can't say 'it's ok to take your belief system from faith in a God, as long as that God agrees with 21st century western liberal norms, otherwise your God is wrong'. Does that not sound astonishingly arrogant - that we are the only people in history who might be right? Does it not seem vanishingly unlikely that we were interpreting God's requirements all wrong right up until the second half of the twentieth century, after which we started getting it right?

    I should stress that I do believe in 21st century liberal norms. But I believe in them because they strike me as the best way for human society to arrange itself, not because I think a higher power has decreed them.

    (And, in all probability, my belief in 21st century liberal norms is probably driven by the context in which I live my life rather than by dispassionate assessment. I'd like to think that I have independently arrived at the conclusion that 21st century societal norms are the correct ones. But transport most of us who believe in 21st century societal norms and have us grow up in ancient Sparta, and what would we believe? Most of us would believe in the norms of ancient Sparta. I'd like to think I'd be one of the few independent thinkers - but the chances of that are pretty slim.)
    Yes, a kind of weightier version of Back To The Future where you are transported to the ancient world and try to talk them out of their primitive ways. You'd get nowhere and would soon adapt instead, be cheering with the rest of them as people were tossed to the lions.

    But to be serious for a second, a 'belief in God' only makes sense to me - as a sentence, I mean, not the sentiment itself - if it means believing a human being is more than flesh & blood. We have a body or we *are* a body? Which is it? If the first, then the bit which isn't a body - some essential "I" - is in the spiritual world and it's then a short step from this to "God".

    Me, I lack this belief in something (about us) other than our bodies. But if others have it, that's terrific and I would actually quite like to join them. It would, I think, make for a better life experience - and you'd never be disabused of it since when you die and it turns out you're wrong you won't know it and so will never find out you were wrong. This is why I think religious faith (in the way I'm defining it) is rational. Nevertheless I don't have any.

    I distinguish between this and the rules dictated by religions for how life is lived. Where these are about clothes and food and buildings and methods of worship etc, that's an 'each to their own' affair, but it's a different matter where they effectively cast groups of people (eg women, homosexuals, non believers) as inferior beings. There's a lot of this about and I have no problem declaring it - with no caveats - to be wrong.
    Yes, so much that we take for granted is just a case of going with the flow.

    "Western liberal values" are very much a minority outlook, both worldwide and historically. And, they'd go out the window pretty quickly if we faced a major war. A hundred and fifty years into the Enlightenment, you had US soldiers in the Pacific, decorating themselves with the body parts of dead Japanese soldiers.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,781
    edited February 2022

    On top of those management fees, various other expenses were billed by companies controlled by Captain Tom trustees.

    Not doubting you, link to info? Wonder how much of the £30 million got donated and how much that cost to manage?
    https://twitter.com/sensiblehuman96/status/1490695260053377030?s=21

    And

    https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/-/charity-details/5161126/accounts-and-annual-returns
    Its one thing to spend £160k on management, but only managed to award 4 grants in a year. Now you obviously want checks and balances and don't want to hose it up the wall, but 4, in a year.....

    And £400k spent to raise £1 million....
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294
    edited February 2022

    Off topic,

    I see the Captain Tom Foundation made over £1m last year, but only donated £160k.

    Another £160k was consumed in “management fees”.

    And to think, someone was convicted (in Scotland) of sending a “grossly offensive” tweet about the dead Captain.

    A tweet which, by the way, was far less offensive than Jimmy Carr’s joke about killing gypsies.

    16% is not the lowest ratio of charitable work & donations performed by a charity. There are charities where the charitable bit is not visible using a state of the art microscope.
    Captain Tom seemed like a good chap, but the phenomenon became manic at some stage.

    Perfect example of looking at your wallet when someone invokes patriotism.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,376
    Stocky said:

    Apologies is already posted: on 28 January the government slipped out an announcement in a blog (!) that the student loan repayment threshold for 2022/23 would be frozen at £27,295. This affects loans taken out in England and Wales which starting from September 2012 onwards.

    The threshold should have risen in line with earnings growth, a pledge given by May in 2017.

    The increase would have been a 4.6% increase (to £28,550).

    The consequence of this freeze is that a graduate earning over the threshold will be paying £113 more than would have been the case had the limit been revalued as per May's pledge.

    Was mentioned at the time. Another stealth tax increase.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294
    dixiedean said:

    Stocky said:

    Apologies is already posted: on 28 January the government slipped out an announcement in a blog (!) that the student loan repayment threshold for 2022/23 would be frozen at £27,295. This affects loans taken out in England and Wales which starting from September 2012 onwards.

    The threshold should have risen in line with earnings growth, a pledge given by May in 2017.

    The increase would have been a 4.6% increase (to £28,550).

    The consequence of this freeze is that a graduate earning over the threshold will be paying £113 more than would have been the case had the limit been revalued as per May's pledge.

    Was mentioned at the time. Another stealth tax increase.
    I love it when my lender unilaterally changes loan terms.
  • On top of those management fees, various other expenses were billed by companies controlled by Captain Tom trustees.

    Got a link?

    There has been fake news about this before:

    https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN22G2NM
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,479
    AlistairM said:

    Cookie said:

    A 40% WoW fall in cases by date reported, with the (more reliable but time lagged) fall in cases by date of test also gathering pace.
    No obvious data issues to drive it - though as always caution should be exercised with these figures.

    Interestingly and not unrelatedly, the fall in testing also seems to be being maintained - almost below 1m tests per day now. Which is still far too many for my preferences, but perhaps indicates the public's increasing indifference to covid.

    I think the indifference to Covid is quite widespread now. There are still a few iSage-type zealots out there. One of my wife's friends basically locked her 12yo son in his room for a week when he had Covid. They and some others went out last week for a meal and one suggested that she was like a prison jailer.

    Unless some new much more deadly and transmissible variant suddenly crops up then Covid in the UK will be out of the pandemic and into an endemic state.
    Agreed. It's been notable these past few weeks how rarely people even discuss it now. The fact that someone has it is usually met with nothing more than friendly sympathy and a shrug. In fact, I think one of the biggest drivers of indifference is those inclined to the dark charms of zerocovidianism bumping into covid itself.

    A few of my friends were covid-fearful – almost full-on zerocovidians. They have since contracted the virus and the response has been words to the effect of: "Er, was that it?"
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,006
    IanB2 said:

    Howard (Lord) Flight: It looks as if Boris Johnson may “hang in there” for a while longer, although his days are surely numbered. He has lost the support of the coalition of parties which elected him. The longer he limps on the more damage he does to the Conservatives. A replacement Prime Minister will also need adequate time to settle into the job ahead of a General Election. Johnson will get some credit for his vaccination success, although this is already history. I do not see there being anything he can do to restore his reputation and popularity.

    Between 2017 and 2019 the country had a much better look at Corbyn and decided they didn't like what they saw.

    The same is now happening to Johnson. Lots of voters didn't pay much attention to his many flaws in 2019 but I think that for many people the penny has since dropped. Who was it that said that the more anybody gets to know Johnson the more they grow to despise him? I think he has blown it now whatever he does.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,999
    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,905
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,757
    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    That is the problem with religion. If one can't comprehend then it must be God. It is ok not to be able to comprehend and then try and comprehend. God is the easy way out.
  • Andy_JS said:

    "Top Oxford professor Sir John Bell claims Macron and Merkel's trashing of AstraZeneca jab 'probably killed hundreds of thousands of people'

    Mr Macron initially trashed AstraZeneca jab as 'quasi-ineffective' for old people
    German chancellor Angela Merkel echoed doubts by German experts on safety
    In a new programme about the jab, Sir John said they had blood on their hands
    BBC Two's AstraZeneca: A Vaccine For the World?, will air tonight at 9pm"

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10459105/EU-leaders-decision-trash-AstraZeneca-jab-killed-hundreds-thousands-people.html

    Yawn.

    This is why Brexit will never be over. Johnny Foreigner is always sticking their foot out so that John Bull tumbles over it in a clownish manner. Never John Bull’s fault of course…
    Not sure how you make that work.

    In the case of Germany, someone invented some bollocks, somewhere in officialdom and then "leaked it" to the press.

    In France, Macron became a self taught expert on COVID and vaccines (as stated by his spin doctors) and mouthed some more nonsense.

    In neither case, could any actual facts be found to substantiate the claims. Just the reverse.
    This is why England has lost her spunk. It was always a big boy what done it and run away.

    It really is tragic to witness.
    You are being needlessly stupid on this. The accusation is that Macron and the German journalist/minister killed their own people by what they said and did. I fail to understand what this has to do with England losing its 'spunk'?
    He is so bitter, as is common in nationalists, that any sense of objectivity is impossible for him to relate to in his pursuit of his divisive attitudes
    It is a little sad that anyone can be so stupid to think a vaccine of all things should be a thing to become nationalistic about (and I include Tories in that), particularly as all pharma companies are about as international as you can get in terms of personnel. I imagine there were probably a fair few Scots in the AZ team, but they are probably not "true" Scots as they live in England and are therefore race traitors.
    One of the funniest elements in the saga was the EU suing the “British” Astra Zeneca Plc when it turned out they actually had to sue the Swedish Astra Zeneca AB as that was who their contract was with….
    That is assuming "they" thought it was "British". Maybe Macron did, or at least thought enough French voters did, so that it was a nice bit of populism to have a pop at what was thought to be a Rosbif company. I am not convinced it was necessarily anti-British by the EU, more of an attempt to cover up red faces in the Commission at their ineptitude in vaccine procurement.
    Since they were bitterly complaining about the British vaccine roll out and not the Swedish one and threatening to block supplies to Britain, not Sweden it’s not a great stretch to conclude it was the British they sought to punish. And couldn’t.
    It is possible, particularly if you wish to view it from a nationalistic perspective, and perhaps there were people in the EU countries in addition to M. Macron who viewed it that way. I think there is significant evidence IIRC that there were also a lot that did not.
    On 21 March, Ursula von der Leyen had announced that the EU might ban AstraZeneca shipments from the EU to the UK unless AstraZeneca fulfill their contractual obligation first.[86] According to a Guardian analysis, an export ban has the potential to delay the British vaccination programme by two months and speed up the EU vaccination programme by one week

    https://tinyurl.com/3xrwmrhx
    I don't doubt that was factual. I disagree with the Daily Express type analysis that it was meant to "punish us for Brexit" bollox. She, in particular, was employing a distraction method beloved of people like Boris Johnson. Set up a bogeyman so that people don't notice one's own mistakes or shortcomings
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    As someone too thick for uni I've always admired Major. But at my short time at uni I learnt that on these stats he's an outlier and can be safely ignored.
  • Well, everyone is back at Westminster, at least until recess later this week, and it seems we do not have the 54 letters.

    Let's hope Dom has some serious shit to drop tomorrow.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Hanging onto my Thor belief here.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294

    On top of those management fees, various other expenses were billed by companies controlled by Captain Tom trustees.

    Got a link?

    There has been fake news about this before:

    https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN22G2NM
    Upthread.
    You can read the return yourself.

    Be sure to check out the appendix for details of payments to trustee-owned companies.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    edited February 2022
    One of my students once popped MDMA ahead of a pentecostal church service. The pastor was wonderstruck that I'd brought along such a spirit-filled believer.

    If you're Leon you take that as proof of God. Otherwise you see it as a synthetic replication of spiritual experience, in much the same way that Timothy Leary did in the 1960's. Aldous Huxley of course famously went down the Leary route with his Doors of Perception.

    Hence, The Doors. Jim was another of those drug-religion types.

    Yawn.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,575
    JBriskin3 said:

    As someone too thick for uni I've always admired Major. But at my short time at uni I learnt that on these stats he's an outlier and can be safely ignored.

    8 out of 55 PMs did not go to university, not just Major
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294

    Well, everyone is back at Westminster, at least until recess later this week, and it seems we do not have the 54 letters.

    Let's hope Dom has some serious shit to drop tomorrow.

    Why is he calling Guto Hari, “Huawei Hari” and implying he cannot be trusted with classified information?
  • There really are too many dogs, aren't there?

    They're even crapping up our nature reserves.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/07/dog-pee-and-poo-harming-nature-reserves-study

    Dog tax, anyone?

    Never trust a person that doesn't like dogs. Always trust a dog that doesn't like a person.
    Some dogs are lovely, some dogs are horrible. A bit like people, I suppose.
    They tend to reflect their owners very often, but normally they are better than their owners. On the whole, I tend to see them as God's creatures. In a loving and gentle dog there is a pureness of spirit that is rarely found in human beings sadly.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    edited February 2022
    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.

    Consider this: you are bigger than the planck length by a bigger factor than the observable universe is bigger than you, and you are made out of more atoms than there are stars in the universe and grains of sand in the world. It's all a matter of perspective.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,857
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    eek said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/07/boycott-jimmy-carr-over-horrid-joke-about-roma-people-says-sajid-javid

    Asked about the comments, Javid told Times Radio they were “horrid”. He added: “I think we all have a right to react to that. And one of the best ways anyone can react to that is show these platforms, what they think about Jimmy Carr by not watching or listening to him, and that will send him a very strong message.”

    So that's two cabinet ministers criticising Jimmy Carr. If they said "personally, I don't find it very funny, but each to their own" then I could understand it. But it's disappointing to hear them saying how other people should behave towards Carr.

    I am still intrigued why 6 weeks after it was releases this has only just become a thing. It was the most watched comedy special on Netflix in 2021, despite only coming out on the 26th Dec.

    Millions watched it, the media will have as its part of their job and nobody commented. Then 6 weeks later it becomes an outrage.
    Because the joke is now being repeated completely out of context. And it's only when out of context that the joke is utterly appalling.
    Of course. Also, find it interesting that the sole focus of the outrage is on the gypsy element, not the Jehovah Witness had it coming part of the routine.

    eek said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/07/boycott-jimmy-carr-over-horrid-joke-about-roma-people-says-sajid-javid

    Asked about the comments, Javid told Times Radio they were “horrid”. He added: “I think we all have a right to react to that. And one of the best ways anyone can react to that is show these platforms, what they think about Jimmy Carr by not watching or listening to him, and that will send him a very strong message.”

    So that's two cabinet ministers criticising Jimmy Carr. If they said "personally, I don't find it very funny, but each to their own" then I could understand it. But it's disappointing to hear them saying how other people should behave towards Carr.

    I am still intrigued why 6 weeks after it was releases this has only just become a thing. It was the most watched comedy special on Netflix in 2021, despite only coming out on the 26th Dec.

    Millions watched it, the media will have as its part of their job and nobody commented. Then 6 weeks later it becomes an outrage.
    Because the joke is now being repeated completely out of context. And it's only when out of context that the joke is utterly appalling.
    Of course. Also, find it interesting that the sole focus of the outrage is on the gypsy element, not the Jehovah Witness had it coming part of the routine.
    I once had some good fun - I got some people really rilled up against Seventh Day Adventists. Foaming at the mouth about their ghastly beliefs and practices. One person even suggest they should have children taken away from them....

    Then I showed them a picture of me helping out at a community event that involved the local Seventh Day Adventist church. When they saw who made up the church, they got very, very upset. With me.....
    As indeed they might - you and your little games.
    Well, if you are going to express bigotry concerning religious minorities, don't be shocked if they turn out to be racial minorities as well.

    Assuming that funky brands of Christianity are white-people-only or that there isn't a nasty history of oppression of such groups.......
    That the reactionary wing of Christianity very much isn't whites only certainly isn't news to me.
    Most religions are "reactionary" in the sense of the not being on the politically/socially progressive side.

    If you are up for condemning religions based on them being reactionary, then you will have to be comfortable with saying that religion X, primarily practised by ethnic minority Y, is a crock of shit.

    Personally, I find condemning other peoples religions somewhere between rude and a waste of time.....
    I split Religion into 2 parts when I think about it or comment on it. The faith in a higher power and the belief system as it applies to life on earth. The faith bit I like. I don't have it but wish I did. I don't find it irrational or to be criticized or mocked in any way. The belief system is also fine by me so long as it's based on equality and tolerance and kindness. If it isn't - and sadly this is sometimes the case - that isn't fine and one shouldn't be shy to say so.
    "I don't have it but wish I did" - interesting. An atheist who wishes he wasn't?

    "that isn't fine and one shouldn't be shy to say so" - do you really criticise the major interpretation of all the Abrahamic religions (for example) ? Brave, if so.
    No, I'm not an atheist. I'm a nothing. A big fat nothing. Yes, I'm ok with criticizing any beliefs propounded by any religion if they get up my nose. I don't think this is brave tbh - but I'll take that label if you insist.
    It's perfectly acceptable to criticise a religion if you think it's wrong. But it's not the fact that that its belief system is not based on equality and tolerance that makes it wrong. The lack of equality and tolerance is because that's the way which those particular believers understand that their Gog wants them to behave.
    Faith isn't a little quirk of a fundamentally straightforward 20th century lifestyle. It is a fundamentally strange belief system - that there is an invisible higher power who requires certain things. Saying 'well that's ok as long as it doesn't fundamentally contradict 21st century western liberal views' rather misses the point.

    There was a Marcus Brigstocke book about this. I got very angry with it. The sub-heading could have been 'ha, ha, look at these people, they don't even conform to 21st century liberal views, they can't possibly be right'. It was such a missed opportunity. If believers are wrong, they are wrong because of the fundamental aspect of their belief that rules of behaviour are handed down by a higher power - not because of the rather secondary consideration that they've misinterpreted those rules. If believers are right - well, who are we to know exactly how the higher power wants us to behave? From my point of view on the outside of religion, if there is a higher power, how am I to have any degree of certainty what the rules are? Maybe those of the 21st century Church of England. Maybe those of the taliban. Maybe those of the Orthodox Jews of North London, or the 16th century puritans, of the Catholic Church of the 9th century AD, or one of the tribal religions of South America.

    We can't say 'it's ok to take your belief system from faith in a God, as long as that God agrees with 21st century western liberal norms, otherwise your God is wrong'. Does that not sound astonishingly arrogant - that we are the only people in history who might be right? Does it not seem vanishingly unlikely that we were interpreting God's requirements all wrong right up until the second half of the twentieth century, after which we started getting it right?

    I should stress that I do believe in 21st century liberal norms. But I believe in them because they strike me as the best way for human society to arrange itself, not because I think a higher power has decreed them.

    (And, in all probability, my belief in 21st century liberal norms is probably driven by the context in which I live my life rather than by dispassionate assessment. I'd like to think that I have independently arrived at the conclusion that 21st century societal norms are the correct ones. But transport most of us who believe in 21st century societal norms and have us grow up in ancient Sparta, and what would we believe? Most of us would believe in the norms of ancient Sparta. I'd like to think I'd be one of the few independent thinkers - but the chances of that are pretty slim.)
    Yes, a kind of weightier version of Back To The Future where you are transported to the ancient world and try to talk them out of their primitive ways. You'd get nowhere and would soon adapt instead, be cheering with the rest of them as people were tossed to the lions.

    But to be serious for a second, a 'belief in God' only makes sense to me - as a sentence, I mean, not the sentiment itself - if it means believing a human being is more than flesh & blood. We have a body or we *are* a body? Which is it? If the first, then the bit which isn't a body - some essential "I" - is in the spiritual world and it's then a short step from this to "God".

    Me, I lack this belief in something (about us) other than our bodies. But if others have it, that's terrific and I would actually quite like to join them. It would, I think, make for a better life experience - and you'd never be disabused of it since when you die and it turns out you're wrong you won't know it and so will never find out you were wrong. This is why I think religious faith (in the way I'm defining it) is rational. Nevertheless I don't have any.

    I distinguish between this and the rules dictated by religions for how life is lived. Where these are about clothes and food and buildings and methods of worship etc, that's an 'each to their own' affair, but it's a different matter where they effectively cast groups of people (eg women, homosexuals, non believers) as inferior beings. There's a lot of this about and I have no problem declaring it - with no caveats - to be wrong.
    Yes, so much that we take for granted is just a case of going with the flow.

    "Western liberal values" are very much a minority outlook, both worldwide and historically. And, they'd go out the window pretty quickly if we faced a major war. A hundred and fifty years into the Enlightenment, you had US soldiers in the Pacific, decorating themselves with the body parts of dead Japanese soldiers.
    The flip side of that oft told story...

    It's sometimes said that the invasion of Okinawa showed that the Japanese military was crumbing and would have surrender without the atomic bombs. This is based on the larger number of prisoners taken, than previous island invasions.

    The number of prisoners relates, in fact, to

    1) The Japanese military regarded the native Okinawans as a bit sub-human and not-entirely-Japanese. So they didn't arm them when they conscripted them, but put them in labour battalions and treated them especially badly. Even by Japanese army standards. Strangely, when the Americans showed up, the unarmed and rather abused conscripts put their hands up.

    2) During the invasion, some American Marines broken through defences and got into an underground hospital before the staff could do what they they normally did when the Americans were about to over run a military hospital - murder all their patients.

    So the Marines seeing a bunch of people murdering hospital patents, shot the orderlies and called in their own medical people. As a result a vey large number of the patients survived to become POWs......
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
  • Thread:

    1/ The implication of this
    @AngusMacNeilSNP tweet is that a UK conspiracy is ripping off the North of Scotland. It has been endorsed by numerous SNP colleagues. It is, of course, nonsense. This thread explains why.


    https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1490722845483315209?s=20&t=87sB5sqVjPCzJdR1LTGI1Q
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084

    Well, everyone is back at Westminster, at least until recess later this week, and it seems we do not have the 54 letters.

    Let's hope Dom has some serious shit to drop tomorrow.

    Why is he calling Guto Hari, “Huawei Hari” and implying he cannot be trusted with classified information?
    Because he lobbied the Gov't on behalf of Huawei
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,371
    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.

    Consider this: you are bigger than the planck length by a bigger factor than the observable universe is bigger than you, and you are made out of more atoms than there are stars in the universe and grains of sand in the world. It's all a matter of perspective.
    This sort of conversation always makes me think of a mole of moles.

    https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    You have put your finger on the premise of faith: it helps you cope. And as such that is fantastic to think that this is not "it". But what does it mean to you exactly. That there is a God. Then what.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,905
    Heathener said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
    You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”

    Consider which approach might be the more diseased

    Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
  • Another day and yet again Johnson seems to have spent it hanging around other people's workplaces just to get a clip for TV news.

    Does he do any actual governing with, like you know, meetings with people in Whitehall and so on?
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    edited February 2022
    HYUFD said:

    JBriskin3 said:

    As someone too thick for uni I've always admired Major. But at my short time at uni I learnt that on these stats he's an outlier and can be safely ignored.

    8 out of 55 PMs did not go to university, not just Major
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education
    Thanks for the research - Major was the PM for my teenage years so regardless who's also on the list he will still be admired by me.

    EDIT: Churchill! who doesn't like Churchill? I just assumed he was a uni type.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,294
    Heathener said:

    Well, everyone is back at Westminster, at least until recess later this week, and it seems we do not have the 54 letters.

    Let's hope Dom has some serious shit to drop tomorrow.

    Why is he calling Guto Hari, “Huawei Hari” and implying he cannot be trusted with classified information?
    Because he lobbied the Gov't on behalf of Huawei
    Ah yes. Catching up…
    Not sure what I think about that except to note the revolving door in the politico-media nexus.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Following on from Robert's observation/theory I like the idea that there are aliens around but that they see our galaxy just like we see a grain of sand two metres below the surface of the beach. We will never see that grain of sand barring some extraordinary event and everyone (we on the grain of sand, the aliens on the beach) quite happily and happily oblivious of the other's existence.
  • Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    That's good to hear, SeanF.

    Perhaps coming to the PB bash on March 2nd would also help. Would be good to see you there.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,217
    dixiedean said:

    Stocky said:

    Apologies is already posted: on 28 January the government slipped out an announcement in a blog (!) that the student loan repayment threshold for 2022/23 would be frozen at £27,295. This affects loans taken out in England and Wales which starting from September 2012 onwards.

    The threshold should have risen in line with earnings growth, a pledge given by May in 2017.

    The increase would have been a 4.6% increase (to £28,550).

    The consequence of this freeze is that a graduate earning over the threshold will be paying £113 more than would have been the case had the limit been revalued as per May's pledge.

    Was mentioned at the time. Another stealth tax increase.
    All the other tax thresholds are frozen (so that inflation will increase taxes), so it would be surprising in a way if the graduate tax threshold wasn't also frozen.

    The more interesting thresholds in this regard are those for tapering child benefit and the personal allowance. These have been frozen at £50k since it was introduced in 2013 for child benefit and £100k for the personal allowance since 2010. If they had gone up by inflation then they would be ~£61k and ~£136k in 2021, even before the high inflation of the next few years.

    This practice of freezing thresholds to increase tax without having to up the percentage rates is part of what is making a right old mess of our tax system.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    edited February 2022
    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
    You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”

    Consider which approach might be the more diseased

    Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
    No I didn't literally write that. I was writing about the doors of perception.

    Frightened you say? But I'm not. The frightened ones are those who seem to need to believe in something else outside the fact that we're born, we live, we die.

    I am content to die when my time comes and have no need for a God-crutch, thanks.

    (But this doesn't deny SeanF's point. I'm genuinely sorry about your depression and glad for your solace in your church community.)

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,439
    edited February 2022
    Redfield & Wilton.

    Westminster Voting Intention (7 Feb):

    Labour 42% (+2)
    Conservative 32% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 9% (-2)
    Green 6% (–)
    Scottish National Party 4% (–)
    Reform UK 4% (+1)
    Other 3% (+1)

    Changes +/- 31 Jan

    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1490732152404779008
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 62,873
    edited February 2022
    Redfield Wilton

    Labour increase to 10% lead

    What are you waiting for conservative mps

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,999
    As an aside, I would have thought that humans have a predilection towards belief because that conferred survival advantages. Your group, sharing beliefs, looked out for each other. Individuals that lacked that belief gene, were more likely to find themselves alone, being eaten by a lion.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,575
    edited February 2022
    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
    You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”

    Consider which approach might be the more diseased

    Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
    Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.

    Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.

    Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,454

    Another day and yet again Johnson seems to have spent it hanging around other people's workplaces just to get a clip for TV news.

    Does he do any actual governing with, like you know, meetings with people in Whitehall and so on?

    Not now there are no parties.....
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
    You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”

    Consider which approach might be the more diseased

    Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
    As you yourself note of course you like religion because it is (and has been from the start, via Bach et al onwards and no I'm not comparing you with Bach) a huge psychotropic construct. God/heroin/etc - fulfils the same function. But a construct nevertheless.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,678
    edited February 2022
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    I don't think I was denied faith.
    My parents are, I think, atheists, though it's not a thing we've ever discussed - but they've certainly never tried to pass on their atheism. I dutifully encountered religion at school. But it was never terribly convincing, and the few people I met who were genuinely and outwardly convinced of God were all rather odd.

    Even as far back as the 1970s, religion in mainstream urban Britain was - well, not exactly sidelined, but an anachronism we persisted with but weren't entirely sure why - like soup spoons or ties.

    I agree we have a god module in our heads though. There's an evolutionary biologist whose name now escapes me who is quite interesting on that - his view is that tribes which 'did' religion thrived, because they reinforced group identity - and thus outcompeted those tribes which did not, and those without the god module.

    I don't really seek faith - it strikes me as an inconvenience and a potential source of unwanted existential terror - but I am interested in it. I am an atheist, but that it is a statement of fact rather than an angry badge of identity, and I am genuinely curious about religious belief.

    Could the experience of ayahuasca not equally well make you think 'I have taken a hallucinogenic drug which is having strange effects on my brain'?
  • rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Ted Chiang had an excellent short story in his Exhalation Collection about this. Would highly recommend both of his collections and pretty much all the short stories within.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,905
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    You have put your finger on the premise of faith: it helps you cope. And as such that is fantastic to think that this is not "it". But what does it mean to you exactly. That there is a God. Then what.
    Fuck knows, mate. Fuck knows. God knows, maybe.

    I will tell you a story from my ayahuasca trip in Ibiza in December. At its peak I was spiraling down and down and down into this cave system of my own consciousness, all of it surrounded by beautiful but probably rather meaningless hexagons and diamonds of lurid, lovely light spangles, with various reassuring or scary voices of my own memories, id, hang-ups, all interrupting but then being drowned out by laughter or scorn, and then deeper, deeper

    I was spelunking my human spirit, that is certainly what it felt like. And then I reached a dark narrow scary space that abruptly opened out and I was above a kind of tremendous underground river, the river than connects all conscious life in the universe, any universe, because consciousness is a shared enterprise that creates and purposes the universe, without us to observe it, there is nothing to observe

    All religions are a flawed, clumsy, usually laughable attempt to describe this indescribable truth
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,240
    TOPPING said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
    Thanks. I think the root cause of my depression was excess drinking. I've been teetotal since 1st December.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,380
    HYUFD said:

    JBriskin3 said:

    As someone too thick for uni I've always admired Major. But at my short time at uni I learnt that on these stats he's an outlier and can be safely ignored.

    8 out of 55 PMs did not go to university, not just Major
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education
    Doesn't Sandhurst count? Or not because you're specifically taught to give orders which will be obeyed?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.



  • Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    I think you need to study history a little more to enlighten your unenlightened ignorance of the enlightenment.
  • Another day and yet again Johnson seems to have spent it hanging around other people's workplaces just to get a clip for TV news.

    Does he do any actual governing with, like you know, meetings with people in Whitehall and so on?

    Depends on what drinks are being served.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.

    Consider this: you are bigger than the planck length by a bigger factor than the observable universe is bigger than you, and you are made out of more atoms than there are stars in the universe and grains of sand in the world. It's all a matter of perspective.
    This sort of conversation always makes me think of a mole of moles.

    https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/
    But the really big numbers are just so big as to be unimaginable in magnitude. Try getting your brain around how big Grahams number is

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuigptwlVHo&t=33s

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,999
    Final point, because I have a meeting to dial in to.

    Science is not a body of knowledge that one believes in.

    Science is a belief that a certain process is likely to help discover physical laws: that is that one makes testable (falsifiable) proposition, and then one does the observations/experiments to see if the proposition is false.

    And just because one falsification experiment fails, that does not mean that the it is true.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,727
    If God ever posts on PB he'll have a hell of a time.
  • Another day and yet again Johnson seems to have spent it hanging around other people's workplaces just to get a clip for TV news.

    Does he do any actual governing with, like you know, meetings with people in Whitehall and so on?

    As I said earlier he needs hooking off - he is a national embarrassment
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
    Thanks. I think the root cause of my depression was excess drinking. I've been teetotal since 1st December.
    Sounds like a very sensible plan. I am moving (slowly) to somewhere close to (but not exactly) that position and have laid in stocks of Peroni Libera and Gordons 0.0%. Both fulfil the function/ritual of having a drink.

    The weekends, that said I will have a few glasses of wine but it's amazing how the zero alcohol drinks satisfy much of the urge to drink.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,678
    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
    Thanks. I think the root cause of my depression was excess drinking. I've been teetotal since 1st December.
    ooh, hello Sean - I was reminiscing about you (amongst others) in a discussion of early posters on pb.com the other night.
    Sorry to hear about your depression and pleased to hear you are now recovering.
    I also suffered from a bout of depression last year, and stopping drinking was part of my way out of it. I never drank particularly heavily, but I very rarely had a day without alcohol.
    Relieved of my depression, I did start drinking again, in a low key way, 6 months later. But I give myself far more days off than I used to.
  • Omnium said:

    If God ever posts on PB he'll have a hell of a time.

    He would soon get banned and cancelled for saying un politically correct things .
  • Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    I think you need to study history a little more to enlighten your unenlightened ignorance of the enlightenment.
    PS. This is a great one for your bedtime reading: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-intellectual-history/article/abs/history-and-church-history-in-the-catholic-enlightenment/81017ECEE50832D28F1360513CC2EFC4
  • Omnium said:

    If God ever posts on PB he'll have a hell of a time.

    Who says he or she is not already a regular? Some posters think they have omniscient knowledge, I would check those out for hint of a deity first.
  • The “North Germanics” doing well in the Dictatorship Olympics.
    Where’s the Clowns?

    1. Sweden
    2. Russia
    3. Netherlands
    4. Evil empire
    5. Germany
    6. Norway
    7. Slovenia
    8. Italy
    9. English North America
    10. Japan
  • Another day and yet again Johnson seems to have spent it hanging around other people's workplaces just to get a clip for TV news.

    Does he do any actual governing with, like you know, meetings with people in Whitehall and so on?

    To be fair, if I were one of his staff I'd be wanting to get him out of the way harmlessly dangling from a zipwire or driving a JCB through some cardboard boxes rather than having him disrupting the small amount of work the government is actually able to do.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Heathener said:

    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.

    Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.

    Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
  • Omnium said:

    If God ever posts on PB he'll have a hell of a time.

    The difference between @Leon and God is that God doesn't believe he is @Leon
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    You have put your finger on the premise of faith: it helps you cope. And as such that is fantastic to think that this is not "it". But what does it mean to you exactly. That there is a God. Then what.
    because consciousness is a shared enterprise that creates and purposes the universe, without us to observe it, there is nothing to observe

    How very Schleiermacher.

    With all the same European C19th flaws of anthropocentrism.

    Again, yawn.

    One of the great faults of the Enlightenment theology was its fantastic capacity to peer through the telescope of history and see ... oneself.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,376
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    Thanks for that. Nice to know someone else doesn't automatically assume religion equals belief in an all-powerful God.
    Nor indeed that the existence of infinite World systems was part of a major world religion a mere 2500 years ago.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,575
    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    Has it? Some of the greatest scientists of all time eg Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Mendel were very religious.

    I don't see how encountering alien life or not has the slightest impact on whether Jesus Christ was the son of God and the Messiah or not, there are 7 billion humans on earth, Christ was only a middle eastern man. He came to save humanity whether or not there are aliens or not or whether or not he also saved them is completely irrelevant to that for me as a Christian. Not that we have encountered any aliens yet anyway

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,922
    Today

    ‘Boris Johnson is not a complete clown’
    PM’s new Dir of Comms initial assessment

    Hiring of new Chief of Staff will increase Parliament accountability- says minister put up in place of Steve Barclay who failed to appear

    NHS backlog plan delayed. Photo op went ahead anyway


    https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1490733299958009863
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,084
    dixiedean said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    Thanks for that. Nice to know someone else doesn't automatically assume religion equals belief in an all-powerful God.
    Nor indeed that the existence of infinite World systems was part of a major world religion a mere 2500 years ago.
    Indeed.

    I love Buddhism partly for the very reasons you state.
  • Heathener said:

    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.



    Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around

    May your God go with you
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,678
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Heathener said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
    Yes.

    Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.

    I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.

    Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
    It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
    Well I agree.

    I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
    You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”

    Consider which approach might be the more diseased

    Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
    Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.

    Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.

    Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
    Hm, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. I'm an atheist, but also probably comfortably in the bottom quartile for wokeness.
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    The “North Germanics” doing well in the Dictatorship Olympics.
    Where’s the Clowns?

    1. Sweden
    2. Russia
    3. Netherlands
    4. Evil empire
    5. Germany
    6. Norway
    7. Slovenia
    8. Italy
    9. English North America
    10. Japan

    Is 4 - Team GB or Zhongguo?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,575
    edited February 2022
    dixiedean said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    Thanks for that. Nice to know someone else doesn't automatically assume religion equals belief in an all-powerful God.
    Nor indeed that the existence of infinite World systems was part of a major world religion a mere 2500 years ago.
    Actually that is exactly what Judaism and Islam require, indeed more so than Christianity as their religion is based solely on an all powerful God. Even Muhammed was just a prophet for Muslims, not the Messiah and Son of God like Christ is for Christians
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,905
    Heathener said:

    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.



    Actually, it is not a need. I was a convinced teenage atheist - utterly scornful of those who “needed” faith. I regarded it as a crutch as you do

    Then I did a ton of acid and speed one night and faith kind of overwhelmed me. It erupted INTO me. I was not especially unhappy, I did not ask for it to happen, I did not require it, nor seek it, the revelation was actually quite frightening and destabilising, but also undeniable

    Interestingly, the persona of God that I met age 21 on acid in Regents Park is the exact same persona I met on ayahuasca in Ibiza in December of last year, decades later. If anything, He has become more abrasive, and he was never that chummy to begin with
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    As an aside, I would have thought that humans have a predilection towards belief because that conferred survival advantages. Your group, sharing beliefs, looked out for each other. Individuals that lacked that belief gene, were more likely to find themselves alone, being eaten by a lion.

    Sure, but it also seems to have a special affinity for the very cruel torture and murder of outgroups - if you look at the reasons for which people get burned or boiled alive and so on, it is disproportionately for being the wrong sort of believer as opposed to doing anything particularly dreadful. This should be a worry
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,678
    rcs1000 said:

    As an aside, I would have thought that humans have a predilection towards belief because that conferred survival advantages. Your group, sharing beliefs, looked out for each other. Individuals that lacked that belief gene, were more likely to find themselves alone, being eaten by a lion.

    Yes, the evolutionary biologist whose name I forget though I have two books by him makes this point at length.
    Something to do with Liverpool University? Grr. If I was WFH I would just go and look on my bookshelf.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,831
    Leon said:

    Heathener said:

    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.



    Actually, it is not a need. I was a convinced teenage atheist - utterly scornful of those who “needed” faith. I regarded it as a crutch as you do

    Then I did a ton of acid and speed one night and faith kind of overwhelmed me. It erupted INTO me. I was not especially unhappy, I did not ask for it to happen, I did not require it, nor seek it, the revelation was actually quite frightening and destabilising, but also undeniable

    Interestingly, the persona of God that I met age 21 on acid in Regents Park is the exact same persona I met on ayahuasca in Ibiza in December of last year, decades later. If anything, He has become more abrasive, and he was never that chummy to begin with
    Good luck to you both.
  • Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    eek said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    RobD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    eek said:

    The very fact the Nats think you could fight a referendum on the basis of some sort of court action against a foreign country to (hopefully) secure a state pension if there was a yes vote is only proof there patently isn’t going to be a referendum

    https://twitter.com/ianssmart/status/1490617744701677569?s=20&t=h7sAb9V_C62ZRuucpDGo7Q

    Let's not go there again - can we just agree to disagree with those who believe in magic state pension money trees.
    So, hang on, in the absence of indy, the UK is going to find itself unable to continue to pay pensions to UK pensioners, is it?
    The tree is analogous to the pot. Something that can immediately be exploited for money. There is no tree, there is no pot. It's all out of current revenue.
    Oh my god

    If I want to establish a fund to meet a known future liability, I tend to buy gilts from the government. That is, promises from the government to make regular payments to me in the future. This is usually regarded as the safest possible way of investing. So how actually would the government establish a fund? What is more secure than a promise by the government to pay? What makes you think that an institution which turns over 1.1tn a year and is incapable of going bankrupt is not something that can be immediately exploited for money?
    How many rUK voters are going to willing pay the State pension of pensioners in an Independent Scotland after what would be a bitterly fought independence referendum.

    What would the consequences be for any rUK Government that agreed to do so come the next (and subsequent) elections?

    That's why it doesn't work...
    How is the construction of the concrete bunkers for the storage of 200+ nuclear warheads near Falmouth going? Oh! You haven’t started yet?! Dearie dearie me.
    That's not an issue until Scotland gets a referendum. My point is that what Scotland wants is politic suicide where any rUK government to even vaguely suggest it.

    And the standard attack on the forthcoming NI changes is where did that £350m a week go to?
    Page one of chapter one of Negotiation for Dummies. BritNats ought to buy copies.

    The most fascinating aspect of Blair McDougall‘s recent activity is that BetterTogether2 is clearly well under way. The forces of evil are gathering. Will the good guys win the day this time? Exciting, n’est-ce pas?
    Oh, where's he been putting his tuba then?
    It was him who kicked off this whole pensions nonsense last week. He lives in a time warp. Bit sad really.

    (Has he defected to the Tories? I’m sure I read that somewhere, but his Wiki bio still has him as Labour.)
    Ah, I was wondering what it was all about - now I see. The tuba yet again.

    As for defecting to the Tories, does it really make any difference in Scotland?
    No. Two faces of the same dud coin. The Orange Lodge is the rim.
    Sectarianism. How quaint.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,240
    Cookie said:

    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
    Thanks. I think the root cause of my depression was excess drinking. I've been teetotal since 1st December.
    ooh, hello Sean - I was reminiscing about you (amongst others) in a discussion of early posters on pb.com the other night.
    Sorry to hear about your depression and pleased to hear you are now recovering.
    I also suffered from a bout of depression last year, and stopping drinking was part of my way out of it. I never drank particularly heavily, but I very rarely had a day without alcohol.
    Relieved of my depression, I did start drinking again, in a low key way, 6 months later. But I give myself far more days off than I used to.
    Thanks. In my case, it was one to one and a half bottles of wine, each and every day. I think it dulled my mind to a number of problems which I'm gradually working my way through. I panicked when I first woke up to the scale of the problems.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,854
    edited February 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Applicant said:

    kle4 said:

    Britain Zemmour can be added to the list.


    What an odd choice of comparison - perhaps I'm wrong but id have assumed even in the pool of voters he was swimming in Boris would not be popular.
    I think Zemmour is contrarianing himself out of contention.
    Speaking of which, what happened to @contrarian?
    Shadowbanned, by the look of it.
    @MISTY is the new name for @contrarian

    I think he changed name because I kept calling him out for his refusal to admit that Christmas has not been cancelled in Gibraltar.
    Good choice of username then. 'Play Misty for Me' was one of Clint Eastwoods most compelling films. A forerunner of 'Fatal Attraction' about a nutter with identity issues

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma8FlRoGOwg
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,727

    Omnium said:

    If God ever posts on PB he'll have a hell of a time.

    The difference between @Leon and God is that God doesn't believe he is @Leon
    Given the attention he gets here I'm quite surprised there isn't a ... I can't say it.... But surely that's the thing about ...., we can't say it because its.....

    As prophesised in a book by Sean Trellis (one day he'll bite - I genuinely thought I'd get him at the first attempt).
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,380
    HYUFD said:

    Heathener said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Ummm.

    I find this a curious argument.

    Let me explain. With so many stars in the Universe, it seems almost incredibly unlikely that intelligent life does not exist somewhere out there.

    But do the aliens of Phobos B 13 share the same God as us? Do they look like us? Do they have a story of a being pinned to a cross?

    If we are alone in the Universe, I would think that pretty much guarantees the existence of God, who created man in his image. It would be a Universe that existed just for us.

    But it we are not, then who is to say that the beings of Althos XII are not the ones whose creation story (whatever that might be) is right?
    Yep.

    The Church has consistently been a block to the advance of science and I suspect that when humans eventually encounter intelligent life out there it will shatter the faith of many believers. Certainly Christianity anyway. Islam is in a marginally better position because it doesn't believe any single human being was (is) God incarnate ... which is so ludicrous as to be laughable.

    Buddhism will remain as cool as ever.
    Has it? Some of the greatest scientists of all time eg Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Mendel were very religious.

    I don't see how encountering alien life or not has the slightest impact on whether Jesus Christ was the son of God and the Messiah or not, there are 7 billion humans on earth, Christ was only a middle eastern man. He came to save humanity whether or not there are aliens or not or whether or not he also saved them is completely irrelevant to that for me as a Christian. Not that we have encountered any aliens yet anyway

    Er....... sometimes I wonder!
  • Gary_BurtonGary_Burton Posts: 737
    edited February 2022
    Redfield and Wilton poll is relatively good for Starmer albeit he still has a lot more work to do.

    Best PM rating is interesting: Starmer vs Johnson, 40% to 33%, Starmer vs Sunak 40% to 38%.

    That said could be worse for Johnson, actually a 2% recovery for him.
  • The “North Germanics” doing well in the Dictatorship Olympics.
    Where’s the Clowns?

    1. Sweden
    2. Russia
    3. Netherlands
    4. Evil empire
    5. Germany
    6. Norway
    7. Slovenia
    8. Italy
    9. English North America
    10. Japan

    You are obsessed with your boring and tedious anti England comments

    And as far as your silly point scoring, where are our Alpine ski resorts

    My eldest son was a professional snowboarder and learnt his sport in the Alps, Canada and US
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    edited February 2022
    JBRISKIN3'S RELIGIOUS TAKE

    You can't create Something from Nothing. That which created Something from Nothing can reasonably be described as God (or indeed VALIS*)

    *That's just a sci-fi ref for the nerds. There is indeed a God.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,575
    edited February 2022

    Redfield poll is relatively good for Starmer albeit he still has a lot more work to do.

    Best PM rating is interesting: Starmer vs Johnson, 40% to 33%, Starmer vs Sunak 40% to 38%.

    On that poll it makes no difference whether Sunak or Johnson is party leader then in terms of outcome, if the best PM figures are taken to roughly equate to voting intention.

    It would be a hung parliament either way. Just with Johnson Labour would win most seats whereas with Sunak the Tories would win most seats but Starmer would still become PM with SNP support.

    Sunak would save some Tory MPs' seats, he would not however stop a Labour government
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,905
    TOPPING said:

    Heathener said:

    I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.

    If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.

    Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.

    Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
    Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum

    What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.

    But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,678
    Sean_F said:

    Cookie said:

    Sean_F said:

    TOPPING said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    I under-estimated the number of galaxies in the universe

    It is not my rough drunken guess of "seventy billion" (which is itself quite a high number), it is two TRILLION, ie two million million

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/18/this-is-how-we-know-there-are-two-trillion-galaxies-in-the-universe/?sh=83cced95a67b

    Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)

    So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe

    In actual numbers that is

    200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

    That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number

    This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink

    Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.

    I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.

    (I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)

    And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
    I find all this genuinely sad

    To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever

    Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both

    And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module

    My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
    Recovering as a I am from a major bout of depression, I can attest that having the support of a friendly church is invaluable.
    Very happy to hear that.
    Thanks. I think the root cause of my depression was excess drinking. I've been teetotal since 1st December.
    ooh, hello Sean - I was reminiscing about you (amongst others) in a discussion of early posters on pb.com the other night.
    Sorry to hear about your depression and pleased to hear you are now recovering.
    I also suffered from a bout of depression last year, and stopping drinking was part of my way out of it. I never drank particularly heavily, but I very rarely had a day without alcohol.
    Relieved of my depression, I did start drinking again, in a low key way, 6 months later. But I give myself far more days off than I used to.
    Thanks. In my case, it was one to one and a half bottles of wine, each and every day. I think it dulled my mind to a number of problems which I'm gradually working my way through. I panicked when I first woke up to the scale of the problems.
    I find it genuinely inspiring that you were a) at the stage of panicking when you woke up to the scale of your problems, and b) recovered to the stage where you are working your way back again.

    That is not drinking, and the support of your church, but that is also an admirable degree of determination and self-discipline.
This discussion has been closed.