"...I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me..." [Deuteronomy 5:8-10]
I grew up with Billy Connolly. My family lived all over the world, and Billy's albums were my one contact with my Scottish roots. Here he rips on religion, suicide bombers and sexual repression.
I try to avoid Theologyweb. Its high-school-debate mentality and preponderance of born-again home-schoolers mean discussions there invariably come to resemble school girls scratching each other eyes out over some "High School Musical" plot point. Let's say more heat is generated than light. That, and I end up losing my temper and not wishing loving kindness and compassion on my "opponents".
My point, is to show that atheism, or the belief that there is no God, is just as guilty of having "faith" in the supernatural where cosmology is concerned. That is to say, that either they must believe in a universe that is created by supernatural means (even if they believe that science will progress to a point where it is no longer supernatural, it is still supernatural now).
Did you get that? Anything science cannot explain is "supernatural". Thus it takes "faith" to believe that anything which science cannot currently explain actually does exist. Like, say, the universe and everything in it.
The guy appeared to see the vacuity of this argument eventually. Which was nice. But he had trouble with the difference between non-belief and insistent denial. As it happens, the very wonderful Cectic ran the following cartoon this week... Spooky or what?
So Shall You Reap is a short & funny documentary about the astounding amounts of money made at the KICC Evangelical Church in North London. See believers queue up time and time again to hand their money over to charlatans and carpet-baggers, like Eddie Long and Cindy Trimm.
Apparently Christians "give more" than non-believers... But how much of that money goes on luxuries for pastors and their families? Is anyone keeping count?
On the basis of apparently incontrovertible evidence, commentators of various persuasions... are convinced that we are witnessing an upsurge in religious observance and influence...
But I see the same evidence as yielding the opposite conclusion. What we are witnessing is not the resurgence of religion, but its death throes...
When a climate of heightened tension such as this prompts activists in one religious group to become more assertive... other religious groups, not wishing to be left behind, follow suit... The effect is that suddenly it seems as if there are religious devotees everywhere, and the spurious magnification of their importance further promotes their confidence. As a result they make some gains, as the faith schools example shows...
Yet the fact is that only 10 per cent of the British population attend church, mosque, synagogue or temple every week, and this figure is declining in all but immigrant communities... Yes, over half the population claim vaguely to believe in Something... but they are functionally secularist and would be horrified if asked to live according to the letter of (say) Christian morality: giving all one’s possessions to the poor, taking no thought for the morrow and so impracticably forth. Not even Christian clerics follow these injunctions. This picture is repeated everywhere in the west except the US, and there too the religious base is eroding...
As private observance, religion will of course survive among minorities; as a factor in public and international affairs it is having what might be its last - characteristically bloody - fling.
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