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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
What a stupid question! Your imaginary Santa solves nothing. For, in the absence of a better explanation, I can simply suggest that the two atoms came from the same place that your big man in a red furry suit came from.
This isn't some reverse four yorkshireman tale of lack of bravery, but I can barely even watch that stuff. I don't like standing too close to the edge of a 1st floor balcony. In China there was this hotel that was like 50 stories, but all within a skyscraper, so there was a viewing floor at the top where you could look down to the lobby, all enclosed so no chance of falling, and I hated that.
I have a complete terror of heights. Watching anything like that makes me feel queasy.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
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
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Although I partially agree with aspects here, too, the other problem with it is that in our now very aggressively atheist society, religion has become a widely understood shorthand for anything vaguely spiritual at all. Anything spiritual is tainted by the same concepts of power.
"aggressively atheist society"
Given the harms caused by organised religions over the last few thousands years, I wouldn't call our current somewhat atheistic society 'aggressive'.
I also disagree with your underlying comment. People are fine with spirituality. They are very dubious when they say that another person's spirituality and beliefs should impact their lives. Spirituality is becoming more personal and less public. Which, with a country containing many different beliefs, is a good thing IMV.
The thing about Piers Corbyn - from my limited knowledge of him - is that I have no idea where on the political spectrum he lies. I do wonder if he lies somewhere off the plain, on the √(−1) axis,
As is well known there is horseshoe theory where far left and far right closely resemble one another in practice, and I wonder if there is something that sits alongside that wherein the most extreme end reach a point where they end up departing the horseshoe altogether, and even the pretext of their extreme positioning no longer fits on the spectrum.
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
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of things , myself.
Don't whitewash it. Some religions actively try to control who you socialise with, who you pair up with. Until 7 years ago, you couldn't be monarch and married to a Catholic. The Pope must be unmarried and celibate. Muslims are told not to marry non-Muslims. Many religions ban same-sex relationships. This kind of control is normal in religion.
Does that mean that power and control is all religion is ? Ofcourse, it doesn't.
It's nothing to do with whitewashing ; the current trend is in fact a sort of "blackwashing" of every conceivable spiritual belief as tainted by power.
Don't invent an exaggeration that isn't there in my post. I only want to point out that these things go on in the name of religion and that many of these restrictions are canon. When religions dictate whom you may or may not lie next to at night, and especially when they instruct others to treat you differently if you transgress in that regard, that's a thing that deserves to talked about. Religions are about more than just the spirituality. The "thou shalt not" side is usually intrinsic.
R4 PM reporting that Starmer has been escorted into the back of a Met police car What a total numpty!
Another Milliband bacon sandwich moment. What an utter spanner!
Are you quoting a tweet?
If not, that's a stupid post. Don't need our politicians getting Palmed.
It takes quite something when Briskin is on here bumping along the sea floor to come out with the stupidest post of the day, but Mexicanpete managed with with some style.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
Guido has asked for a copy of the Focaldata’s polling data tables which, under British Polling Council rules, have to be supplied within 2 working days of a poll being leaked or published.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Back on the current and main topic, that people are discussing, I agree this really could be yet another unexpected, and entirely self-inflicted, turn of disaster, for our Bozo.
It will have the unmistakeable whiff of the importation of hysterical and violent, Trumpist-style politics to a lot of people.
This isn't some reverse four yorkshireman tale of lack of bravery, but I can barely even watch that stuff. I don't like standing too close to the edge of a 1st floor balcony. In China there was this hotel that was like 50 stories, but all within a skyscraper, so there was a viewing floor at the top where you could look down to the lobby, all enclosed so no chance of falling, and I hated that.
I have a complete terror of heights. Watching anything like that makes me feel queasy.
When I was a teenager, I had a little job working on a power station cooling tower. Not one of the concave jobs on 1960s power stations, but a Borg-cube like thing. For the first few hours, I would inch along the 18-inch wide concrete beams with caution. After a couple of days, I would run along them.
You get used to it.
Being in the rigging of a tall ship in a breeze, at night, was a very different matter. I'd never get used to that.
A Labour MP has accused Boris Johnson of "inciting" violence against Sir Keir Starmer, after he was surrounded by an anti-lockdown mob.
The group surrounded the Labour leader and chanted "traitor" while another protestor shouted that Sir Keir was "protecting paedophiles".
Sir Keir was then bundled into a police car and escorted away from the crowd.
Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda, hit out at the Prime Minister after a video of the incident was shared on social media, suggesting it was Mr Johnson's comments in the despatch box regarding Jimmy Savile that had encouraged the group.
Guido has asked for a copy of the Focaldata’s polling data tables which, under British Polling Council rules, have to be supplied within 2 working days of a poll being leaked or published.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
What a stupid question! Your imaginary Santa solves nothing. For, in the absence of a better explanation, I can simply suggest that the two atoms came from the same place that your big man in a red furry suit came from.
Which is what? Surely a man of obvious intelligence and repartee as shown by your answer can explain things? Surely I can't assume you just don't know the answer.....?
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
I’m sure decent (note, decent) English folk will make her very welcome.
The thing about Piers Corbyn - from my limited knowledge of him - is that I have no idea where on the political spectrum he lies. I do wonder if he lies somewhere off the plain, on the √(−1) axis,
As is well known there is horseshoe theory where far left and far right closely resemble one another in practice, and I wonder if there is something that sits alongside that wherein the most extreme end reach a point where they end up departing the horseshoe altogether, and even the pretext of their extreme positioning no longer fits on the spectrum.
Yes but I think in this case it does not apply. There is a strange cluster of beliefs: covid-sceptics; Brexit; climate change sceptics; the Trump stuff in America. Lazily called alt-right but perhaps extreme anti-Establishment?
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
It would be nice if you stopped misrepresenting an argument you very obviously have not understood. Your "two hydrogen atoms" thing was a bit bizarre, and a good signal that you haven't got a good grasp at all on it. I don't pretend I understand it well, but I can see that you are entirely adrift of it.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
OK so Nippy can't be jailed.
She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
The granny-bashers in Spain were the nationalists. It's the Spanish word for right wing unionists.
The thing about Piers Corbyn - from my limited knowledge of him - is that I have no idea where on the political spectrum he lies. I do wonder if he lies somewhere off the plain, on the √(−1) axis,
As is well known there is horseshoe theory where far left and far right closely resemble one another in practice, and I wonder if there is something that sits alongside that wherein the most extreme end reach a point where they end up departing the horseshoe altogether, and even the pretext of their extreme positioning no longer fits on the spectrum.
Yes but I think in this case it does not apply. There is a strange cluster of beliefs: covid-sceptics; Brexit; climate change sceptics; the Trump stuff in America. Lazily called alt-right but perhaps extreme anti-Establishment?
That was my point - I think people come to this stuff initially from 'traditional' extremism, a la horseshoe, but it then morphs into its very own thing and cannot fit into that kind of neat definition anymore. They don't seem to think in those terms at all.
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
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Collective spirituality is not of necessity extremely dogmatic, although it is obviously much more likely to become so than private belief.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
The one Quaker I know well (and who proclaims himself as such) is batsh*t insane, a big fan of Assad and Putin. And when criticised, he says, 'as a Quaker...'.
I'm not sure that that discredits an entire group. They still have strikingly few restrictions of adapting their beliefs, and their structures are quite noticeably democratic, for instance.
Oh, indeed. But it shows how people use a religion as power. How can I be morally wrong, when I am a member of a very moral group?
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
The government coerced and scared us into it; the government must urge and un-scare us out of it.
Specific guidance to insist on masks, hand gels, perspex screens etc must be replaced with specific guidance that these measures should be removed. This should already have been done in the public sector.
Without such direction businesses and other organisations can drag their heels, virtue-signalling away, for a mighty long time yet.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
The granny-bashers in Spain were the nationalists. It's the Spanish word for right wing unionists.
Well I want blow and weed legalised (might knock some sense into the Irn Bru puritans up here) so I can hardly be described as right wing.
When I was a teenager, I had a little job working on a power station cooling tower. Not one of the concave jobs on 1960s power stations, but a Borg-cube like thing. For the first few hours, I would inch along the 18-inch wide concrete beams with caution. After a couple of days, I would run along them.
You get used to it.
Being in the rigging of a tall ship in a breeze, at night, was a very different matter. I'd never get used to that.
I spent some time on top of the half moon wall at Edinburgh Castle in my teens.
No problem doing it at the time. Had nightmares after.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
Or even, given the infinite varieties the BB could have resulted in, Him having directed the results? Like giving a seed number to an RNG in a big simulation ...
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
I’m sure decent (note, decent) English folk will make her very welcome.
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
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of things , myself.
Don't whitewash it. Some religions actively try to control who you socialise with, who you pair up with. Until 7 years ago, you couldn't be monarch and married to a Catholic. The Pope must be unmarried and celibate. Muslims are told not to marry non-Muslims. Many religions ban same-sex relationships. This kind of control is normal in religion.
Does that mean that power and control is all religion is ? Ofcourse, it doesn't.
It's nothing to do with whitewashing ; the current trend is in fact a sort of "blackwashing" of every conceivable spiritual belief as tainted by power.
Don't invent an exaggeration that isn't there in my post. I only want to point out that these things go on in the name of religion and that many of these restrictions are canon. When religions dictate whom you may or may not lie next to at night, and especially when they instruct others to treat you differently if you transgress in that regard, that's a thing that deserves to talked about. Religions are about more than just the spirituality. The "thou shalt not" side is usually intrinsic.
I would say I was only replying in kind. You were essentially saying that by differentiating elements in religion, I was whitewashing all religion, which to my mind is a very exaggerated claim.
I've got no objection to talking about it ; I would just stress again that that is very far from the *only* contents of religion. In the wider view I actually have little time for most, but definitely not all, organised religion myself.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
Turns out he is much more patient than that whole 7 days thing suggested.
Besides, the movie Moonfall has now taught me all I need to know about the development of astral bodies at least.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
Please look up Duck test on your beloved Wikipedia.
You look like a British Nationalist, you blog like a British Nationalist, and squawk like a British Nationalist, then you probably are a British Nationalist.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
OK so Nippy can't be jailed.
She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
So we can deduce, from all those polls that Labour are drifting slightly upwards, the Conservative, LibDems and Greens slightly downwards. What I would like to see is the percentage of those who said they genuinely didn't know, at this point in time, how they were likely to vote next time.
The issue for Labour is, as has been pointed out before, their opinion poll performance is not being reflected in actual results. Local council by-elections have limited value but they should pick up at least some shift in sentiment. So far, they haven't, in fact the results would suggest any progress Labour is having in middle-class areas and not in their traditional heartlands.
Last Thursday made your point, didn’t it? Marked time at best everywhere except Lewes. Which, as a constituency Labour ought to leave to the LibDems
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
Please look up Duck test on your beloved Wikipedia.
You look like a British Nationalist, you blog like a British Nationalist, and squawk like a British Nationalist, then you probably are a British Nationalist.
Says the Scottish Nationalist.
It's a relatively small island - Can't we just all get along?
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
OK so Nippy can't be jailed.
She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
Johnson is on record as having discussed beating up a journalist.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
TBH although I got good A levels and went to uni and stuff I can't even mentally approach the notion of a time before time itself and space and matter. It's not even a contradiction to be overcome because to call it that implies an understanding I don't have.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
OK so Nippy can't be jailed.
She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
Nippy's divisive rhetoric causes violence in Scotland every day.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
Typical unionist thug behaviour.
They know they can’t win if they play fair Malcolm. It’s all downhill from here.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
The Kalam version of the Cosmological argument tries to get round that by insisting that everything which *begins to exist* has a cause. The universe began to exist, so must have a cause. Whereas God - at least for theists - never began to exist, so has no cause.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
Or even, given the infinite varieties the BB could have resulted in, Him having directed the results? Like giving a seed number to an RNG in a big simulation ...
Indeed, and then He has to try and observe the results without interfering with the experiment too much. But, still, we end up with the issue of infinite turtles.
Ooh, so Vanilla does have a six-digit post counter!
It didn’t go boom with some weird field not found error, nor did it reset to zero. Well done developers, on realising that eventually people would post this much on a single forum!
Looks like very accurate list to me, if a bit reserved. Struggling with Munderous mind you but likely that is just the spotty 14 year old Express journalist not being very bright.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
So we can deduce, from all those polls that Labour are drifting slightly upwards, the Conservative, LibDems and Greens slightly downwards. What I would like to see is the percentage of those who said they genuinely didn't know, at this point in time, how they were likely to vote next time.
The issue for Labour is, as has been pointed out before, their opinion poll performance is not being reflected in actual results. Local council by-elections have limited value but they should pick up at least some shift in sentiment. So far, they haven't, in fact the results would suggest any progress Labour is having in middle-class areas and not in their traditional heartlands.
Last Thursday made your point, didn’t it? Marked time at best everywhere except Lewes. Which, as a constituency Labour ought to leave to the LibDems
Yes, as someone else pointed out on here, there seem to be a lot of individual local factors which apparently can explain Labour's performances but, at some point, it becomes obvious there is little progress. There is still little positive to vote for Labour ex-they are not BJ. But that doesn't solve the problem the party has had in areas that have turned against it.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?
You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
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
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‘a 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?
Who is going to grant this "referendum"?
Certainly not the Tories. Even if Boris goes, any Tory replacement will encounter the same logic. Why risk the Union, when there is a perfectly good argument ("once a generation") to say no to a vote?
Not gonna happen. That takes us to 2024. If the Tories win, then again they will say No for the same reason
So you need Starmer to win. If he gets a majority he will also say No, for the same reasons, with the ADDED incentive that one day the Labour Party needs to win again in Scotland, not secede it forever
So that leaves just one shot, Starmer as PM of a NOM Labour govt, dependant on the SNP for any votes. In that situation it is, I suppose, just about conceivable he might yield a vote, but I gravely doubt it as there is no way the Nats will vote him down and put Boris/Tories back in, so he is assured of their support if it comes to the crunch
AT SOME POINT if the Scots keep electing a Nat government which wants another indyref then yes, Westminster will reluctantly yield, but they won't do that until the "generation" argument is exhausted, and they are even less likely to do that any time the polls look good for the Nats
So you're a bit fucked. I reckon Sindyref2 will happen in the 2030s and this time London will be much harder in negotiating the timing, the question and the suffrage
I think you're right, in terms of what will happen, but the once in a generation argument is not a good one, nor is it sustainable for harmonious relationships between the constituent countries. It risks storing up a lot of resentments and greivances (what harm one more, I hear you say?) for the future and I think will make a future sindyRef both more likely to occur and harder to win.
The big problem, as I see it, is the constitution. Perniciously, it's not Scotland's place within it that is the problem but (essentially) England's. A new constitutional settlement between the Nations is required, one that allows a mechanism for the expression of English will outside of the national government but that will be inclusive to all the nations. Unfortunately, constitutional issues do not drive English politics and so it is difficult to see a democratic way through the impasse.
The only future for the United Kingdom is Federal. Without some major constitutional overhaul, all Westminster can do is refuse referenda and offer the devolved government more power by turn.
The latter being exactly what a future Starmer led government would likely do, with a Brown led commission for devomax
My hope is he would be a bit cannier than that. You can't out-SNP the SNP so offering more powers is just another short term strategy for storing up problems. There's not much to go on, admittedly, but I think he gets this. The Tories are Labour's enemy, but the SNP are their nemesis. I genuinely believe that an SLAB revival in Scotland is not only in Labour's interest, but is in the national interest.
Oh my ... something lead by Broon.
Can't they do the Broonian thing, and borrow the cash they need from their grandchildren?
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
You can certainly create something from nothing. Think of a loan. When it gets finalised, one party suddenly has a credit that didn't exist anywhere in the universe and the other party has a debt that was similarly nowhere.
Or think of a bomb. There is no movement, then suddenly lots of things are moving in many directions.
The important thing appears to be conservation. Creating one kind of thing (a debt, kinetic energy) requires an "opposite" to happen (a credit, the corresponding reduction of chemical potential energy). How and whether that translates to the big bang, I have no idea, but it does show that you can get apparent freebies if your frame of reference is only looking at a part of the picture. I have a suspicion that the "beginning" of the universe is merely an artefact of our limited frame of reference. If you want to put God on the other side of that unknown, so be it, but I see no need at all.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
The typical answer re Auschwitz would be "we cannot begin to explain why God allowed this but there must be a reason". You are attempting to use human wisdom and logic - with its limitations - to explain something that is not human.
My own pathetic view would be it's a variation on the story of someone who wins the lottery, everyone says he is lucky, then he nearly dies in a crash involving the car he bought with the lottery and everyone says he is unlucky but then when he is in hospital, his house catches fire and he would have been dead if he wasn't in the hospital. Maybe Auschwitz stopped even worse horrors from occurring in the future (it certainly fatally undermined Racism). Who knows?
The simple truth is I don't know and I don't have a clue but Atheists do seem to and I wanted to see what underpinned their certainty, Arguments such as "a God wouldn't have allowed Auschwitz" is not proof of anything.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
Ooh, so Vanilla does have a six-digit post counter!
It didn’t go boom with some weird field not found error, nor did it reset to zero. Well done developers, on realising that eventually people would post this much on a single forum!
As it didn't go wrong at 65,536, it's next most likely to go wrong at 2^32+1 (4.29bn) so GET POSTING FASTER.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?
You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
Fine, then go with agnosticism. Just don't say atheism is rational.
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
The government coerced and scared us into it; the government must urge and un-scare us out of it.
Specific guidance to insist on masks, hand gels, perspex screens etc must be replaced with specific guidance that these measures should be removed. This should already have been done in the public sector.
Without such direction businesses and other organisations can drag their heels, virtue-signalling away, for a mighty long time yet.
We'll have to see how things pan out over the next few months. I'm hoping that masks will mostly die out after the Government junks the Coronavirus Act in March, though I dare say some people will insist on continuing to use them and that's OK: I've no interest in meddling in what people choose to wear or not to wear without very good reason.
We only need even to contemplate forcing the removal of Covid mitigations if businesses and organisations that have no reasonable excuse for denying service to people who no longer wish to comply with them insist on continuing to do so regardless. Hopefully it won't come to that.
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
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
No. No no no. HYUFD is absolutely right. Atheism really does, very often, combine with contempt for a nation’s history
This is partly because nearly all societies have been religious until at least the late 19th, 20th centuries, but it is still true
The MOST atheistic societies have generally been the most destructive of their own past. The great example is Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which was so atheist it burned down all the temples it found and threw every single Buddhist monk into the sea. It was so atheist it destroyed every single person who knew how to do “sacred Cambodian dance” - one of the great traditions of Indochina before the Khmer Rouge - to the extent that when the atheist commies were finally overthrown there was no one left who knew how to dance. They have had to resurrect it from scratch and a few documents and videos, tricky with a tradition that was handed down over centuries, orally and practically not via written instructions
Another example. The French Revolutionaries stripped bare all their churches and cathedrals, scars that are still highly visible today. A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists
See also Mao’s China, and so on
Er, I don't think the Reformers were atheists. Yet look at what happened in England and Scotland. Albeit the former somewhat remedied by the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E.
Whilst I agree the reformation was a terrible time for English architecture, I am unsure that the Victorian 'vandalism' of churches - often inspired by Angle-Catholicism - improved matters.
Pugin's churches are far too OTT for my tastes. But that's just my tastes.
The new ones that were built were often superb. eg St Mary's, Derby.
The scrapedown-and-make-them-like-my-ideas can be a great loss.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
What created God? How did He come into being?
God is Eternal.
Anyway I've told you lot before and I'll tell you again-
He's an old ugly bloke who lives on Mars; he was on Sky new one night.
Presumably Musk will be the first of the proles to meet him.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
No idea but you might argue that is trying to use human logic to answer a divine question.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
Yes, there's a distinction between the possible existence of a god, and the existence of "God".
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?
You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
Fine, then go with agnosticism. Just don't say atheism is rational.
It's quite rational. Why believe in something that serves no explanatory purpose?
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
That's nothing to do with religion per se. Primitive tribes also behave in this way.
Quite a big deal: one of Boris Johnson’s former cabinet ministers links the harassment of Starmer outside parliament to the PM’s Savile jibes
Julian Smith tweets What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
It's not a big deal. Most of the party will continue to say he has clarified his remarks, and so avoid any question of connection between spreading such stuff and the sort of loonies who hassled Keir.
I think labour should fight dirty on this. It was, after all, one B. Johnson who dismissed the child abuse inquiry as “spaffing money up the wall”
Johnson's point - which has - was that £60m was better spent on addressing crime and funding police to stop crime now, rather than raking over history.
At the very least, he has a point about the need to reflect on priorities.
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
That's nothing to do with religion per se. Primitive tribes also behave in this way.
It was also nothing to do with why Hitler hated the Jews, or Stalin his own opponents too, for instance.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
Actually we can be fairly confident that there is no planet with a four-cornered triangle, as the principle of mediocrity asserts that unless we can observe the contrary, we should assume that the physical laws we observe locally apply across the entire universe, and we have not observed anything (yet) to contradict that.
This is a Good Thing as you don't want to live in a universe where the laws of physics that enable you and I to exist as living beings aren't universal. What if they change where we are, and the very way our bodies work is no longer possible? Unfortunately, that could happen under the false vacuum hypothesis, that our universe that we observe is not in the most stable possible energy state (the "true vacuum") and so is in a false vacuum, and that an event anywhere in the universe could, or has happened, to tip the universe into the "true vacuum" (or a "less-false vacuum"). Such a change would propagate at the speed of light, so we have no way of knowing if it has happened, and if it has, how close the "wavefront" of the change is to us.
This leads us on to the interesting anthropomorphic multiverse hypothesis: that our universe is one of an infinity of universes in a wider multiverse, all with their own laws of physics distinct from all the others. We happen to live in the one universe where the local laws of physics happen to make life as are possible. Other forms of life might be possible in other universes under their local laws of physics, but they could never live here, nor could we live in their universes.
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"
Lost car keys are St Antony , if you are a Saint enthusiast.
The last I heard, God's way of dealing with such arrogance is that you don't find them.
For the record, I think the holocaust joke is best told like this:
An Auschwitz survivor went to heaven and found himself talking - as all new arrivals do - to God.
"Do you want to hear a holocaust joke?" he asks "That's not funny" replies God "Well, I guess you had to be there" he responds
I think that's it: this is the moment the rest of the letters go in to the 1922. It's too reminiscent of the Capitol.
It would be nice to think this was the case, but you're assuming that the same group of people who found none of Johnson's previous misdemeanours sufficient cause to act will be motivated to do so by this latest episode - especially since it's easier to explain away than the parties. Anyone who wants to can argue a la Kwarteng that there was nothing wrong with what the PM said, and that in any event Starmer having to be bundled into a cop car was entirely the fault of the lunatic mob and nothing to do with the remarks.
We may have to tolerate Britain Trump until he can be removed at the ballot box, and there's no guarantee even that that will work.
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
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Although I partially agree with aspects here, too, the other problem with it is that in our now very aggressively atheist society, religion has become a widely understood shorthand for anything vaguely spiritual at all. Anything spiritual is tainted by the same concepts of power.
"aggressively atheist society"
Given the harms caused by organised religions over the last few thousands years, I wouldn't call our current somewhat atheistic society 'aggressive'.
I also disagree with your underlying comment. People are fine with spirituality. They are very dubious when they say that another person's spirituality and beliefs should impact their lives. Spirituality is becoming more personal and less public. Which, with a country containing many different beliefs, is a good thing IMV.
I agree with that. As a result, we should move further down the French secular route, for example by gradually getting rid off faith schools rather than increase their number, as is currently the case. Religion/spirituality belongs in the private domain, not the public domain.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
No idea but you might argue that is trying to use human logic to answer a divine question.
I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.
Who created the Universe?
God
Who created God?
Errr...
If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
I honestly have no idea.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?
You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
Fine, then go with agnosticism. Just don't say atheism is rational.
It's quite rational. Why believe in something that serves no explanatory purpose?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#FineTuniDesi There's a case to made that the universe's fine tuning needs an explanation, and that an incredibly powerful agent was responsible would account for this. On the other hand, I think the multiverse hypothesis would also explain the fine-tuning (get enough monkeys banging away on typewriters and one would eventually write Hamlet), which is why I'm not a theist. Nonetheless, it's clear that in postulating that God was responsible for the fine-tuning doesn't mean you need an explanation for God. You wouldn't get anywhere in science if every explanation needed an explanation.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
In general in theistic thinking if God exists then God's existence is necessarily the case - it is one of God's many qualities - and is therefore uncreated and eternal. (This does not prove God's existence however though many mistakenly think so),
If God exists it is by far the simplest explanation of everything else in creation, including existence itself. Occam does not apply.
The empirical and non intentional explanations of how either the universe has the quality of infinite duration (has always existed and always will) or is somehow magicked out of nothing at all are much more complex, or much less explanatory than the 'good old god' theory. Perhaps this is why lots of scientists still prefer it.
I hope God and heaven and hell exist. For I should like Fred West and Idi Amin and Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot to pay for the misery and pain they caused other people.
It would be a real shame if they just ceased to be.
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
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
No idea but you might argue that is trying to use human logic to answer a divine question.
I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.
Who created the Universe?
God
Who created God?
Errr...
If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
I hope God and heaven and hell exist. For I should like Fred West and Idi Amin and Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot to pay for the misery and pain they caused other people.
It would be a real shame if they just ceased to be.
An by extension, I should like those who put the wellbeing of others above themselves to be rewarded for doing the right thing.
Because human society - which elevated Putin to power and wealth beyond belief - doesn't seem to work like that, so it'd be good if there was some recompense in the afterlife.
Comments
Given the harms caused by organised religions over the last few thousands years, I wouldn't call our current somewhat atheistic society 'aggressive'.
I also disagree with your underlying comment. People are fine with spirituality. They are very dubious when they say that another person's spirituality and beliefs should impact their lives. Spirituality is becoming more personal and less public. Which, with a country containing many different beliefs, is a good thing IMV.
https://twitter.com/GETTRofficial/status/1490737694275633153?t=EImrWhHeoGGcYyGdP_EEoQ&s=19
I only want to point out that these things go on in the name of religion and that many of these restrictions are canon. When religions dictate whom you may or may not lie next to at night, and especially when they instruct others to treat you differently if you transgress in that regard, that's a thing that deserves to talked about.
Religions are about more than just the spirituality. The "thou shalt not" side is usually intrinsic.
https://order-order.com/2022/02/07/exclusive-mystery-of-the-fake-polls-creating-fake-news-in-the-sunday-times/
Guido has asked for a copy of the Focaldata’s polling data tables which, under British Polling Council rules, have to be supplied within 2 working days of a poll being leaked or published.
Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
It will have the unmistakeable whiff of the importation of hysterical and violent, Trumpist-style politics to a lot of people.
You get used to it.
Being in the rigging of a tall ship in a breeze, at night, was a very different matter. I'd never get used to that.
With Johnson, the Met, a complicit "party of government"...
....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)
Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/sturgeon-for-pm-snp-leader-more-popular-than-boris-johnson-in-england-206901/amp/
Your "two hydrogen atoms" thing was a bit bizarre, and a good signal that you haven't got a good grasp at all on it. I don't pretend I understand it well, but I can see that you are entirely adrift of it.
She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
It's an appeal to a (very) higher authority.
Specific guidance to insist on masks, hand gels, perspex screens etc must be replaced with specific guidance that these measures should be removed. This should already have been done in the public sector.
Without such direction businesses and other organisations can drag their heels, virtue-signalling away, for a mighty long time yet.
No problem doing it at the time. Had nightmares after.
All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
I've got no objection to talking about it ; I would just stress again that that is very far from the *only* contents of religion. In the wider view I actually have little time for most, but definitely not all, organised religion myself.
Besides, the movie Moonfall has now taught me all I need to know about the development of astral bodies at least.
You look like a British Nationalist, you blog like a British Nationalist, and squawk like a British Nationalist, then you probably are a British Nationalist.
It's a relatively small island - Can't we just all get along?
https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/journalist-stuart-collier-boris-johnson-phone-call-darius-guppy-demands-apology
SNP branch forced to apologise for 'nasty anti-English bile' social media post
Exclusive: The SNP Orkney branch have apologised after sharing a social media post which has been branded "nasty anti-English bile" by critics.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-branch-forced-apologise-nasty-26164493
The universe began to exist, so must have a cause. Whereas God - at least for theists - never began to exist, so has no cause.
It needs to be profound.
Pineapple does not belong on pizza.
It didn’t go boom with some weird field not found error, nor did it reset to zero. Well done developers, on realising that eventually people would post this much on a single forum!
Struggling with Munderous mind you but likely that is just the spotty 14 year old Express journalist not being very bright.
You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
Can't they do the Broonian thing, and borrow the cash they need from their grandchildren?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election#Pre-campaign_period
Or think of a bomb. There is no movement, then suddenly lots of things are moving in many directions.
The important thing appears to be conservation. Creating one kind of thing (a debt, kinetic energy) requires an "opposite" to happen (a credit, the corresponding reduction of chemical potential energy). How and whether that translates to the big bang, I have no idea, but it does show that you can get apparent freebies if your frame of reference is only looking at a part of the picture. I have a suspicion that the "beginning" of the universe is merely an artefact of our limited frame of reference. If you want to put God on the other side of that unknown, so be it, but I see no need at all.
What happened to Britain?
My own pathetic view would be it's a variation on the story of someone who wins the lottery, everyone says he is lucky, then he nearly dies in a crash involving the car he bought with the lottery and everyone says he is unlucky but then when he is in hospital, his house catches fire and he would have been dead if he wasn't in the hospital. Maybe Auschwitz stopped even worse horrors from occurring in the future (it certainly fatally undermined Racism). Who knows?
The simple truth is I don't know and I don't have a clue but Atheists do seem to and I wanted to see what underpinned their certainty, Arguments such as "a God wouldn't have allowed Auschwitz" is not proof of anything.
We only need even to contemplate forcing the removal of Covid mitigations if businesses and organisations that have no reasonable excuse for denying service to people who no longer wish to comply with them insist on continuing to do so regardless. Hopefully it won't come to that.
The scrapedown-and-make-them-like-my-ideas can be a great loss.
Anyway I've told you lot before and I'll tell you again-
He's an old ugly bloke who lives on Mars; he was on Sky new one night.
Presumably Musk will be the first of the proles to meet him.
No, you're Sean.
No, you are..
etc.
At the very least, he has a point about the need to reflect on priorities.
Here is the interview segment with Nick Ferrari:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_FSqfXyUFk
This is a Good Thing as you don't want to live in a universe where the laws of physics that enable you and I to exist as living beings aren't universal. What if they change where we are, and the very way our bodies work is no longer possible? Unfortunately, that could happen under the false vacuum hypothesis, that our universe that we observe is not in the most stable possible energy state (the "true vacuum") and so is in a false vacuum, and that an event anywhere in the universe could, or has happened, to tip the universe into the "true vacuum" (or a "less-false vacuum"). Such a change would propagate at the speed of light, so we have no way of knowing if it has happened, and if it has, how close the "wavefront" of the change is to us.
This leads us on to the interesting anthropomorphic multiverse hypothesis: that our universe is one of an infinity of universes in a wider multiverse, all with their own laws of physics distinct from all the others. We happen to live in the one universe where the local laws of physics happen to make life as are possible. Other forms of life might be possible in other universes under their local laws of physics, but they could never live here, nor could we live in their universes.
An Auschwitz survivor went to heaven and found himself talking - as all new arrivals do - to God.
"Do you want to hear a holocaust joke?" he asks
"That's not funny" replies God
"Well, I guess you had to be there" he responds
We may have to tolerate Britain Trump until he can be removed at the ballot box, and there's no guarantee even that that will work.
Who created the Universe?
God
Who created God?
Errr...
If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
There's a case to made that the universe's fine tuning needs an explanation, and that an incredibly powerful agent was responsible would account for this.
On the other hand, I think the multiverse hypothesis would also explain the fine-tuning (get enough monkeys banging away on typewriters and one would eventually write Hamlet), which is why I'm not a theist. Nonetheless, it's clear that in postulating that God was responsible for the fine-tuning doesn't mean you need an explanation for God. You wouldn't get anywhere in science if every explanation needed an explanation.
If God exists it is by far the simplest explanation of everything else in creation, including existence itself. Occam does not apply.
The empirical and non intentional explanations of how either the universe has the quality of infinite duration (has always existed and always will) or is somehow magicked out of nothing at all are much more complex, or much less explanatory than the 'good old god' theory. Perhaps this is why lots of scientists still prefer it.
It would be a real shame if they just ceased to be.
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
Because human society - which elevated Putin to power and wealth beyond belief - doesn't seem to work like that, so it'd be good if there was some recompense in the afterlife.