Something for a Sunday

But this could really be for any day..

sorry a bit of topic today...

Sometimes a perfectly good argument can be stretched too far. In the argument “religion should have no place in the 21st century”, is it a claim too far? Ping, it springs back and you get a bloody nose.

Steven Dawkins is quite obviously an intelligent man, but I can’t see credence in his argument than Religion is portrayed as a force of unremitting awfulness, a poisoned root from which no good fruit could grow. Furthermore, I can’t see why the question, ‘Is it true?’ has no shades of grey

The assumption is always an absolute, by ‘true’ it is interpreted as ‘literally true’. The assumption is also so literal that if the answer is ‘no’, then that closes everything. But it does not. Just because something is not literally true does not mean that there is no truth, or worth, in it.

Even if Adam did not exist. The story of Eden speaks profoundly about ourselves and while on a mission of pulling down religion as wholly valueless as you might if only temporarily have to pretend there is worth until anything remotely as good to put in its place.

In the same way that many church goers and synagogueites refuse to admit what their arguments miss, for fear the whole edifice will crumble, so it is that many atheists fear any similar concession for fear that their line will break and the religious flood through the breach. But I think we should be frank. There are things which both side miss. These little grey areas of inconsistency are a great big gulf between the two sides.

If you keep telling people that they lead meaningless lives in a meaningless universe you might just find yourself with — at best — a vacuous life and a hollow culture? What would that do to the already worrying recessional suicide rates? Professor Dawkins with blood on his hands...

Religion should not be believed to be literally true. There is still a place to ask questions.

Prof D wishes to whip out the carpet without filling the void why are we here? How should we live? How can we be good? Where is the answer? In a parachute, a helicopter or anything else science can offer. To the best of my knowledge science does not have an answer for even part of the questions that will be left unanswered. Not an iota

Who will speak of those things religion once answered, or tried to answer? What would the world be like where there is no comfort on approaching death, no human forgiveness, remorse, regret or reconciliation? Will morality take up the mantle?

Please don’t label all religion as bad, use your energy to fill the void with discussions of profound dimensions.

Remember when America left Iraq, the chaos that ensued, the lawlessness. Please think on kind atheists.

The gulf between believers and non-believers can never be addressed because the key protagonists are both extremists. Neither side is prepared to make a deal.

The compromises must be religion must give up the aspiration to intervene in secular law, especially of those who are not members of their faith.

But non-believers should concede that when it comes to discussions of ideas, morality and meaning, religion does have a place.

Dismissing religion as some relict of our past is not moving the debate on and maybe in the middle somewhere we can search sincerely for the meaning of life.

I wonder if ACAS could help with this. The role of conciliator does not come naturally outside of the realm of business as there is no money to be lost. Are we looking at another century talking past each other?

Truth – there are many truths', they may not be the whole truth, but very little is.

I will close with a line from a boxer

I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.

Muhammad Ali