1. My quest to get de-baptised

Comment #152423 by SharrieG on March 31, 2008 at 2:16 am

For those who are panicking about being included in official stats - I'm not sure that most churches use baptism figures in the stats (maybe CofE and RC do, I'm not sure). I know my own church conducts a census every few years which tots up the number of people who attend and wish to be considered as members of the church, and as far as I know, this is passed to the headquarters for official use.

Babies who were baptised might have their names on a list somewhere, but that's just kept as a record, it's not used for anything.

2. The art of the soluble

Comment #98710 by SharrieG on December 14, 2007 at 5:30 am

Is there a discussion of this book anywhere on the site? I've read it and thought it was excellent - I didn't agree with absolutely everything in it, but it gave me much food for thought. I just wondered what anyone else thought.

John Lennox shouldn't be judged by the 'debate' between him and Dawkins (any more than Dawkins should) - this book presents his arguments much more clearly and fully.

3. This deadly religious resistance to vaccinations

Comment #97442 by SharrieG on December 12, 2007 at 4:58 am

Seriously, this has to be one of the most stupid, illogical articles I've read in a long time!! I actually thought it was a joke when I read it at first!! It's so poorly argued, it's hard to believe it's meant to be serious.

I'm not a Daily Mail reader, and have no real idea who Melanie Phillips is, but from the article, I can see no connection at all between her bizarre creationist views and her stance on the MMR vaccine. The MMR thing is just typical Daily Mail hysteria.

It almost seemed like the guy who wrote it had the title first, and then just made up some waffle to pad it out. Where is there any actual evidence (in the article or otherwise) that religious people are refusing vaccinations for themselves or others on religious grounds?

4. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #76549 by SharrieG on October 6, 2007 at 7:39 am

I've just listened to this and found it really interesting. The format spoiled it though; it would've been interesting to see where Dawkins and Lennox would have taken it had they been allowed to properly come back at each other. They both sounded pretty frustrated to me.

They both made some decent points, but it was kind of pointless when they couldn't actually respond to each other properly. It didn't seem that either of them really got out of their own worldview to seeing things from the other person's angle, and that's where inevitably they clashed - but the format didn't really allow for that.

About the comments about John Lennox - I met him once at a conference, and he's an incredible thinker (and also a really nice guy), and fascinating to talk with. He's not a "religious fundamentalist" as someone suggested above, not by a long shot. Apart from that, I can't tell you much!

5. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73126 by SharrieG on September 24, 2007 at 7:42 am

Roger,

thanks for the link. I didn't know that 6 day creation was in the Presbyterian Church catechism (I was taught it, but it went in one ear and out the other with me) - I can't find an up to date one online though, which makes me wonder how reliable that one is. Certainly I've never heard it taught in a Presbyterian Church, but I have heard evolution being supported.

That guy's not your biggest fan, is he? I read about 2 posts before I was completely baffled...

The BCSE site is good; I might join in a few debates there some time.

6. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73105 by SharrieG on September 24, 2007 at 6:07 am

Roger,

where did you get the Presbyterian statement of faith? I've never read it, and wasn't aware that it endorsed creationism - or at least, young earth creationism. Where can I read it?

I'm afraid I can't help you to understand Strabane... no idea what goes on over there...

7. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73100 by SharrieG on September 24, 2007 at 5:59 am

Luthien:

SharrieG, it matters not how many churches do or don't support literal creationist positions. The issue we should be worried about is the fact that these idiots in the DUP have been voted in (as the largest political party) on the mandate of unionism, and are using their political power to push this junk into our education system.

The original post I was replying to was about the proportion of churches which do or do not support literal creationist positions, which is why I said what I did.

I agree with you that the DUP are using their position to push a religious agenda which they were not elected to do. Hopefully they will not make much progress; so far it doesn't seem to me that they have, which is good.

I'm glad you actually managed to get some canvassers to your door; they didn't even bother with our street this year - I wouldn't have minded a few chats with some of them.

But with regards to the original point which Roger had made, I stand by what I said that the situation regarding belief in young earth creation stuff is not as bad as it might appear to be, superficially.

8. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73073 by SharrieG on September 24, 2007 at 3:29 am

Hi Roger, that's fine, go ahead. Can you send me a link to the forum as well? I wouldn't mind having a read.

Thanks!

9. Row Brews Over DUP Call for Schools to Teach Creationism

Comment #73055 by SharrieG on September 24, 2007 at 2:14 am

Roger Stanyard says:

The Democratic Unionist Party is lead by a young earth creationist, Ian Paisley who is also a King James Onlyist (another manifestation of the same underlying stupidity). Creationism is basically a Calvinistic product and Calvinism is deeply entrenched in Northern Ireland. The second largest denomination, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is Calvinistic and is utterly ambivalent on creationism. Some of its pastors (many, maybe) accept it and are pushing it hard. Quite a lot of the smaller Protestant denominations are either openly creationist or are also pushing it. I'm told that most, if not the vast majority of churches in Northern Ireland that describe themselves as evangelical are now young earth creationist.

As a Christian in Northern Ireland, I'm not sure things are quite as bad as this. The Free Presbyterian Church has little support from most Christians on the ground. I wouldn't say that Creationism is a Calvinistic product, nor that the Presbyterian church promotes creationism - I grew up in a Presbyterian Church, and evolution was entirely accepted.

I don't think it's true that most evangelical churches here are young earth creationist - I have come across very few. A lot of the growing churches are newer ones, which don't subscribe to young earth creationism - and in any case, I don't think there are many churches which take a stance one way or the other.

There are a few denominations, like the Brethren, which would be very strongly against evolution and so on, but they again wouldn't have strong mainstream support (owing to being very 'exclusive', much like the Free Presbyterians).

It's true that Ken Ham & Co are promoting themselves here, but there's also a growing number of people actively opposing their teaching (myself included - I've been invited to speak on science/Genesis/creation etc a number of times; people have always been quite open to it; I've never really had much opposition to what I've been saying), and I'm not sure that they'll really gain ground. It's seen as a very 'Free Presbyterian' position, and since that makes a lot of Christians (including evangelicals) run a mile, I think it'll be harder for them to really be accepted than they think.

Free Presbyterians tend to shout the loudest, and have the protest down to a fine art, but they are by no means representative of the rest of us.

Churches in NI are changing fast; a lot of the bigger denominations are shrinking, and there are lots of newer 'house churches' sprouting up, which are much more forward thinking.

Additionally, the Catholic Church does not support young earth creationism, so that 50% of the population won't be won over by the Hammites!

So, yes, it's bad, but it's not that bad.

10. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50777 by SharrieG on June 20, 2007 at 12:44 am

Great post Dr Benway.

11. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50439 by SharrieG on June 18, 2007 at 6:45 am

BAEOZ and newatheist - I don't personally know any atheists who want to tear down religion by force; all the atheists I know are very pleasant, tolerant, thinking people. But I've come across people on the web and so on who really want to get rid of religion in all its forms.

I know people on 'my side of the fence' sometimes get worried by the virus thing, but it's a pretty big side of the fence, and we really are not all of one mind over here... most of us get the analogy without dissolving into panic.

And of course you can have religion tempered by doubt and uncertainty. My faith is along those lines. It does lead to honestly examined reason, but that's not the end of religion.

12. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50430 by SharrieG on June 18, 2007 at 5:34 am

newatheist wrote:

SharrieG and (and for that matter Wee Flea) need to abandon their unfounded belief that religion is at all necessary.

I don't believe religion is 'necessary' if you mean in terms of morals, a balanced society and so on.

And to me, the reason they have a problem with an atheist aspiration to "stamp out religion", is they're confused about what stamping out religion entails. They seem to think it's about burning churches and persecuting believers. Put most simply, the personal pilot light of religion in your brain can be extinguished with honestly examined reason. It's my opinion however that reason will never defeat the fear of death, and this is why religion will always persist.

No, the reason I don't like the phrase is precisely when it is used to mean things like buring churches and so on. I have absolutely no problem with atheists arguing their case in a rational way; I fully support their right to do so, and indeed, I think it is important that they do this.
But some atheists DO mean that they want to forcibly remove religion from society, and this is what I dislike.
Apologies if I wasn't clear in my original post.

13. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50265 by SharrieG on June 16, 2007 at 6:05 am

Dr Benway, I'd be happy to come for tea any time. Heck, you can come to me too. I make really good cookies. crystalstar79 can come as well.

I will do my best to stop the moderates bothering you, and can only apologise for the limits of my sphere of influence.

In all seriousness, though, it makes me mad when the fundies claim to speak for all Christians. It also drives me mad when atheists say that they want to stamp out all religion, because they don't see beyond the fundies.

I've had my share of bashing from the fundies too; being told I was going to Hell for not believing in 6-day creation. Some people are just too insecure; they need everyone to agree with them in order to feel ok about themselves.

Much better to discuss it all over a nice cup of tea.

14. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50166 by SharrieG on June 15, 2007 at 11:59 am

sargeist:

Thanks, Sharrie, for being a voice of sense in a sea of lunacy :)

You're welcome. Any time. As a bonus, I can do lunacy too.

If there's one good thing that The God Delusion has done, it is that it has shaken up the church a bit and made the less vocal people sit up and say 'is that really how people see us?'. On this site as well, I'm amazed at some of the things that people seem to think are representative of Christianity. I'm not sure that Dawkins did a terribly good job of representing the range of opinions, but at least it gave Christians an idea of some of the things people think of when they hear religion.... a lot of it is misrepresented.

However, when someone at work says that HIV is a punishment for sin, specifically sexual sin, and when I say "but I thought one could repent of sins and be forgiven, so how come people don't suddenly get cured of AIDS when they confess and repent?" and it leads to no considered answer but a fobbing off, then it really does bother me.

Some people just refuse to think. It really bothers me too. Stupid, dangerous attitude; I suspect though, that they like the fact that it makes them feel better about themselves ('I don't have AIDS therefore God must like me' or something along those lines). In fact, I suspect that a lot of people who go to church do so for that reason, rather than because they actually believe it. I'm in two minds whether to argue that the fall off in church attendance lately has actually been a good thing - a lot of those who have left were those who used the church to get power, status whatever.... getting them out might be a good thing in the long run.

On the subject of contraception, why why why is the Catholic Church so annoyed by it?

Dunno. There is some kind of 'theological' reason that they give, but I've never understood it. It's in danger of becoming a dogma now though; yet it has caused so much that's bad: spread of diseases, unwanted pregnancy, poverty as a result of huge families, that kind of thing... but like I say, I don't know their reasons. Likewise, the 'no sex before marriage' programs... nice idea, but you have to make sure that teenagers are educated to make a choice, not just talk a lot and hope they do what you say. I prefer to support programs that educate people in contraception and stuff that's going to help them, though, rather than wasting time arguing.

15. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50127 by SharrieG on June 15, 2007 at 7:18 am

But... is this actually an official(ish) Church attitude? Has it been even intimated by high up people in any major church that this really is some kind of sin punishment?

Not in any church I've ever been involved in... although I guess some of the whackier ones might think like this... unfortunately it tends to be though, that the kind of people who think like this, are the kind of people who shout the loudest.
And I can't speak for American churches; I suspect attitudes there may be different.

16. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50120 by SharrieG on June 15, 2007 at 6:22 am

konquererz says:

Even the "moderate" religion heads end up backing sickening displays like this.

No, we don't. I think this is appalling.

Firstly, Amnesty do fantastic work, and to single out one thing you don't agree with and thereby write off the whole organisation is disgraceful.

Secondly, why should the cardinal be telling people who they should and shouldn't donate to?

And thirdly, the debate is much more than a black and white 'abortion is wrong' matter. We're talking about women in desperate need here - they MUST at least be given the choice. To deny them that is, I think, abusive.

Incidentally, I know that a fair number of churches, including the denomination I belong to, actually support a woman's right to an abortion in a case like this - and even where they would officially believe abortion to be wrong, they agree with the individual's right to choose and they support that. So please don't say that all religious people will back this; I assure you that there will be many who protest against it.

17. How dare you call me a fundamentalist

Comment #47951 by SharrieG on June 6, 2007 at 5:48 am

RabbitDynamite:

With that in mind, I suggest we name Haggard, Chick and their ilk "Extramentalists".

I don't like calling people names (other than their actual names, obviously), but this made me giggle!

18. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47891 by SharrieG on June 6, 2007 at 12:39 am

Phil Rimmer said:

What on earth kind of science do you as a scientist subscribe to then? Is it not based on evidence? Surely not! Is it what can constitute a scientific hypothesis, then? Is it Kuhn rather than Popper? Or is it that you think RD is NOT scientific, perhaps not open to inconvenient, but valid, evidence then? Please tell. I'm genuinely puzzled. ;-)

It's not that Dawkins is not scientific; his other books have shown that he is a brilliant scientist.
It's specifically The God Delusion I'm talking about here. Partly, Dawkins seems to ignore anything he finds inconvenient. He even re-writes thigns others have said - like the bit about Stephen J Gould (I think - I don't have the book to hand) where he says something along the lines of 'I don't believe he can possibly have meant what he said'. But he offers no evidence for that!
Secondly, I didn't at any stage feel he backed up or proved his hypotheses - he illustrated them, yes, but that's not the same thing. The illustrations are random and in some cases inaccurate. Saying that Ghandi was not religious, for example.... this shows a complete lack of understanding of Ghandi's life - he was inspired by parts of the New Testament, for example.
Thirdly, and I guess this is my main point, he seems to read way to much into the evidence that's there. There is no scientific proof for the existence of God. I agree entirely with Dawkins there. But he seems to take this as proof - as if there is nothing out there but science.
My belief is that science studies nature. Since God, or gods, or whatever are by definition supernatural, or beyond nature, then applying science here is never going to give proof. That doesn't prove God or gods exist, but it shows the limits of science.
As a scientist, I think it's vital that we are aware of the limitations of science. Dawkins does not seem to be interested in this.
So my point is that The God Delusion is not a good demonstration of scientific method. It seems to me that Dawkins uses science selectively, and fills in the gaps with dogma. I am surprised when I hear people saying that it offers a scientific 'rout' of the God hypothesis. It simply doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I thought the book was entertaining. But I think it starts with the assumptions that science is all there is, and that atheism is true (although it claims to be proving that), and then just tears strips of religion in an unhelpful, negative and biased way.

19. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47559 by SharrieG on June 5, 2007 at 12:43 am

Shade51:

SharrieG - Sounds like wishful thinking to me. Any statistics on how many people who have read TGD felt compelled to turn into a religionist? Generally speaking, it is highly unlikely that those of "strong faith" would read such a book. If they did, it is highly unlikely that they'd lose their faith because they wouldn't allow their minds to accept any of it. Of those who have strong doubts about their religious beliefs, just based on their own reason and observation - how many do you actually believe will run back into the arms of their religions after reading TGD? If you have statistics, let's see 'em. Otherwise, sorry - I'm not prepared to just take your word for it, even if you are a physicist.

That's not what I meant. I agree, I don't think anyone who wasn't previously religious would have become so by reading TGD. But what the fundamentalists are saying is that they are seeing people react against this kind of stuff by becoming more fundamentalist (I don't imagine such people have read the book, just that they have seen some of the coverage for it). The Intelligent Design movement considers Dawkins to be one of their best adverts. I don't have stats on this, because I'm just pointing out that that's what they are claiming.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've seen that atheists seem to think that this book is the kind of thing that'll 'defeat' religion - but actually, it seems to be inadvertantly feeding into the worst kind of religion.
The view of science which TGD offers is not a particularly good one - as a scientist, I have a problem with that. It's too rigid and dogmatised for my liking.
I think there are much better books on atheism out there (although I haven't done a whole lot of reading in the area) and there are certainly much better science books (like all Richard Dawkins' other books, for example!).

20. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47353 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 7:37 am

Fair point Cool On Oolon.

21. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47347 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 6:56 am

Logicel, I see what you're saying... I do think it's dangerous to fall into the trap of being too cynical though.

Christians and others didn't free children from menial labour so that they could be indoctrinated. They freed them because they saw that the children were being made to do dangerous, menial work, and because they believed that they should follow Jesus' teaching to respect children, not use and abuse them. Of course, there were others who weren't Christians who were involved with this as well; they had their reasons too. My point is that this is a good thing, so let's not be cynical about it.

Then we can look at indoctrination as a separate issue - and bear in mind that not all religious people indoctrinate their children; many are keen to open their kids' minds and promote free thinking, and are horrified by indoctrination. Lumping the good with the bad gets nobody anywhere.

Let's tackle those who still abuse children, whether they are religious or not.

Anyway, the article is interesting; I agree it could do with a clean-up though! I didn't know Wikipedia had so many editors.

22. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47338 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 5:58 am

Thanks for the link, Logicel. Interesting article. Didn't quite follow that quote from it though - do they mean Jesus' attitude or the ancients' attitude was to be propagated?

Although with this:

Hmmm, clever, astute Jesus! Let no child suffer unless it is suffering caused by religious indoctrination!

you surely miss the point - Jesus spoke out against the surrounding culture and said that children should be loved and respected. The fact this his followers have not always done this is an indictment on them, not on him.

Children should never be indoctrinated, their minds should be respected. Unfortunately a lot of people have ignored that.

23. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47328 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 5:20 am

Logicel said:

Having a period in human growth marked as childhood is a fairly recent concept also. I wondered if allowing for a 'designated' childhood also plays a role in fundamentalism--having a captive audience to indoctrinate?

Interesting idea Logicel - I guess it's possible. Although surely there was always a period of 'childhood' during which children were treated differently from adults, although it probably ended a bit younger than it would today? That would go way back before the rise in fundamentalism.

24. Beggars belief: Robin McKie on The God Delusion

Comment #47319 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 4:43 am

I think the author of this article has missed something - that there are a lot of religious fundamentalists who LOVE TGD because they are seeing that it's actually 'pushed' people over to 'their side'. And there are a lot of atheists who are just hideously embarrassed by it.

It has a lot of scientists worried too - it doesn't actually give a very good impression of the scientific mind or process; it mixes a lot of dogma in there.

Personally, I didn't think it was great - as others have said, it just wanders around, not really going anywhere. I didn't find it in any way compelling; it was just so dogmatic and 'rigid'.

I'm a physicist, and it seemed to me to highlight some differences in the way biologists and physicists view science, which was interesting.

25. Should Science Speak to Faith? A dialog between Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins

Comment #47303 by SharrieG on June 4, 2007 at 3:22 am

Bonzai: I have not done any detailed study, but I have a hunch that religious fundamentalism and literalism may actually be relatively modern phenomena.

Bonzai, as far as I know, you're absolutely right. Probably within the past 100 years or so. In fact, St Augustine proposed that Genesis was not a literal account of creation, centuries before science had any other explanation. Genesis was (and in many Christian circles still is) generally read as a kind of allegory which tells us about God but not about the mechanisms of the beginning of the world.

I think fundamentalism has arisen as a response to science, from those who felt challenged by the claims that evolution ruled out God (which of course is not scientifically true - it just meant God was not needed as an explanation). Literalism, I think, was kind of drafted in to back up the fundamentalists.

26. Observer Diary 27th May 2007

Comment #45485 by SharrieG on May 28, 2007 at 2:22 am

Wikipedia, the democratically assembled on-line encyclopedia which, by any reasonable standards, ought to be a total failure but somehow, unaccountably, comes through with flying colours whenever you look up something you know about.

Eh?! Are we talking about the same Wikipedia here?!!!
Wasn't there a survey not that long ago which compared Wikipedia with, like, truth, and found it a tad wanting?
Partly I'm kidding... I do love it really, but I've seen a fair few gems on there!

27. God help us all - The No. 2 book on Amazon right now is a

Comment #44710 by SharrieG on May 25, 2007 at 7:48 am

Sounds like a bunch of nutters... very worrying.

On occasions when I see things like this in Christian bookshops (which actually isn't that often; a lot of them are mainly sold online), I tend to at least stick a good few books in front of it or hide it somewhere or something... my funds don't stretch to buying the lot and recycling them into loo roll (besides, that would presumably only encourage another print run).

Is this stuff fairly 'mainstream' in America, does anyone know? I live in Ireland - the Christians I know would generally view this kind of stuff as really dangerous, so I'm shocked to see it make #2 on Amazon.

28. Pick of the Week: The God Delusion

Comment #44272 by SharrieG on May 24, 2007 at 1:38 am

Thanks sheepscarer, I haven't read The Selfish Gene yet, but I'll add it to my 'to read' list.
I don't get it though, if The God Delusion is about explaining why God is a delusion, and Richard Dawkins wants to do this and has the arguments to do this, why doesn't he repeat them there? Seems a bit mean to say 'here's a book about God being a delusion' but then it only refers you to another book. Hmmph.

29. Pick of the Week: The God Delusion

Comment #43618 by SharrieG on May 22, 2007 at 5:57 am

Re: Comment #43609 by stephenray
I guess I'd just read so many reviews of The God Delusion which said that it was such a fabulously rational book, and had such compelling arguments, that I was disappointed to read it and find very little substance.

As I say, I'll have to read bits of it again before making serious criticisms, but it just seemed to be an endless recycling of old arguments and not-very-compelling ideas.

I think it works well as a defence of the internal consistency of atheism. I just don't think there's anything compelling enough for those who aren't atheists to start with to change their fundamental worldview.

30. Pick of the Week: The God Delusion

Comment #43576 by SharrieG on May 22, 2007 at 4:03 am

Ijust read The God Delusion... I'll have to re-read it before I make serious comments, but I was a bit disappointed that Dawkins didn't seem to make a lot of serious arguments - there seemed to me to be more rhetoric and suggestion rather than rigorous logic.
The last chapter was excellent though - where he started talking about science - this one was spine-tingling!

31. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36997 by SharrieG on May 3, 2007 at 4:59 am

Hi Smith, thanks for your welcome... that blogalogue sounds interesting, but I can't find it.... can someone point me in the right direction? I've never heard of Andrew Sullivan, but I've read some of Sam Harris' stuff.

baldywilson - I'm not sure I would call the pope and the bishop you mentioned fundamentalist, I think I'd call their views conservative. I also disagree with them on these issues, and don't think they should have anything like the power they have. If I had a choice, I'd vote to get the Bishops out of the House of Lords, because I don't think it's fair that they can veto stuff and so on...

Cool on Oolon: in response to your 3 paragraphs,
(1) Says who?
(2) No I don't
(3) Depends if you think that only scientific things are useful.

Sorry I don't have time to write more, but I've got to get back to work!

PS. If someone could explain to me how to quote other people in these comments, I'd be very grateful, cos my comments always look messy!

32. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36761 by SharrieG on May 2, 2007 at 7:51 am

SharrieG says

Er... no. It's about God's creation of the world, the main point being that He created it... it's not a science book.
...
Most Christians I know think of Genesis as a kind of allegory, and see evolution as the process that actually happened. Even St Augustine proposed this - that science would one day discover how the world came to be - and argued that Genesis should be taken non-literally.

Cool On Oolon replies:
Ah, so we shouldn't take the bible as...gospel? So then which parts of it are real? And who gets to tell who which bits we can't question and which are up for grabs? If gold rusteth, what shall iron do? (that should be Shakespeare,but I may have made it up)


You've got to delve into it a bit deeper... The point about Genesis, in particular, is that in the original form it's written as a poem, the same way as the Psalms are. This indicates allegory, rather than a historical account.
The author's intention was not, presumably, to give a scientific account of creation.
That's just an example, but the point is it needs to be studied, not taken at face value.

All of it is up for questioning (that doesn't look like it's spelt properly - questionning?... hmmm).

33. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36711 by SharrieG on May 2, 2007 at 4:27 am

John Phillips wrote:
"SharrieG: The problem is that too many treat the bible as literal truth and many of them tend to be the dangerous ones. Unfortunately, moderate xtians cherry picking the 'good' bits of the bible and ignoring its less savoury aspects still base their faith on nothing with any evidence to support it. Thus the moderate is effectively enabling the fundies by justifying faith without evidence and is the reason that in many ways atheists regard moderates as equally dangerous as fundies, only for different reasons. Even more so when the moderate is rarely prepared to stand up and argue against the fundies interpretation. Generally, preferring instead to attack the atheist for having the temerity to question faith without evidence. If the moderate took back the ground from the fundy and made them largely irrelevant to people other than themselves, then we would be happy to let you keep your personal faith without evidence. Until then, we have to loudly and repeatedly question all faiths based on no evidence for the danger it represents to all of us in todays world."

I see what you're saying, but I think you're choosing the wrong target in the moderate Christians. Frankly, I do not believe that religion, in and of itself, presents a danger to the world (provided that people have freedom of choice to chose or reject it). It's the fundametalists who twist it to their own interpretation and use who represent the danger.

Fundamentalists seem to me to have a certain mentality which they apply to everything they come in contact with - religion, politics etc. It seems to me that it's almost part of their nature. I've had my share of attacks from these people in the past when I did seminars on 'science and the Bible' and argued that evolution is a perfectly fine theory (I would, incidentally, take issue with your comment that moderates rarely stand up against the fundies' interpretation - I've seen this happen frequently. But you can't force people to listen.).

My concern is that these people would still have been fundamentalists had they been brought up atheist - they just would have been atheist fundamentalists rather than Christian ones. The fundamentalists would not disappear even if all religion was wiped out.

So, my point is that we cannot get rid of the fundies by attacking the moderates as well. It's fighting the wrong battle.
Nor can we look at the actions of the fundamentalists and infer that 'all religion is dangerous'.

Incidentally, also dispute what you say about cherry-picking, faith without evidence, and moderates attacking atheists.
But I think we'd be digressing from the discussion, and I'm sure there are forums (fora?) elsewhere for that sort of thing.

34. 4 Sermon for Matins: 'Dawkins and The God Delusion'

Comment #36677 by SharrieG on May 2, 2007 at 1:56 am

in response to:
"We don't expect the Bible to give us an explanation of the origin of the universe or of our species."
refuteist said:
"NO? If this is the word of God then what is the point of Genesis! I thought that is what it was all about"

Er... no. It's about God's creation of the world, the main point being that He created it... it's not a science book.
Christians (or at least, thinking Christians) have never generally treated Genesis as if it held the scientific explanation of how the world appeared.
Most Christians I know think of Genesis as a kind of allegory, and see evolution as the process that actually happened. Even St Augustine proposed this - that science would one day discover how the world came to be - and argued that Genesis should be taken non-literally.

35. New Noah's Ark ready to sail

Comment #36071 by SharrieG on April 30, 2007 at 5:55 am

Does anyone else think this is quite cute? A little ark with a petting zoo!!! It's as mad as a moose in flares, obviously, but something about it appeals to me.
I'd take my kids, if I had any... sounds like a fun day out.
I'd make sure they didn't pick up too many leaflets, though...

36. Evolution Booklet

Comment #36056 by SharrieG on April 30, 2007 at 4:27 am

I had a read at the booklet, and it seems pretty good. I initially was a bit sceptical about having a 'religious' slant on it, but actually I think it allows kids to raise some questions and maybe think a bit more critically about the whole area. It acknowledges that there is a debate, and I believe that's a good thing.