Christening....which religion.....

cazziebo

erichamster wrote: »

But that's the same sort of cop out as "god works in mysterious ways". How can you base your life on something you can't even explain to others? It's pointless.

I can't explain properly how I know my children love me, I just know that they do. In the same way, I know there is a God.

I didn't "know" this until I was around 30 when I only went inside a church because my 3 year old daughter wanted to go to Sunday school. It was easier to go into the service than it was to hang around outside when I had no idea how long it took. I found the sermon intellectually stimulating, the fellowship of the congregation heartwarming, and I started to look forward to going. No flash of lightning, no Damascene conversion. My life is so much richer now - in a way that is hard to explain - I know it is.

As for the baptism, in our church, we would welcome anyone who wanted to baptise their children. Our minister's view is that if people only come into contact with us very rarely, we have a responsibility to make that contact as rich and meaningful as possible.

Lotus-eater

EchoLocation wrote: »

Rather like Christopher Hitchens' challenge to Theists...

Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever? Can anyone think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith?

The inquisition?

Lotus-eater

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Disagree with evolution as I've said on numerous occassions.

You disagree with evolution!

Are there still people in this country that don't believe in evolution? I am seriously shocked. (JW's aside)

onlyroz

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Are there still people in this country that don't believe in evolution? I am seriously shocked. (JW's aside)

Evolution is not something you "believe" in. Any good scientist would accept that it is a theory backed up by considerable empirical evidence. In the future the theory might be enhanced, due to new evidence, or possibly disproved. (E.g. consider Newtonian Mechanics, which has since been shown to be wrong, but is an acceptable approximation for the macro scale).

Let "belief" be reserved for those things (like God) for which their followers require no evidence at all.

shortchanged_2

cazziebo wrote: »

I can't explain properly how I know my children love me, I just know that they do. In the same way, I know there is a God.

Do you actually mean you feel or believe there is a God?

Because I could say I know there is no God.

And then it basically boils down to the fact that one of us is right and one of us is wrong.

Person_one

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

That's quite a ridiculous thing to say. There are an enormous number of practising Christians who converted as adults; in Protestant churches, probably a large majority.

Its pretty impossible to know how many people would convert if they truly had no exposure to religion as its so integrated into our culture that even children of atheist parents get a constant trickle of baby Jesus, good Samaritan, the concept of Prayer, even the exclamation of 'Oh my God!.

Lotus-eater

onlyroz wrote: »

Evolution is not something you "believe" in. Any good scientist would accept that it is a theory backed up by considerable empirical evidence. In the future the theory might be enhanced, due to new evidence, or possibly disproved. (E.g. consider Newtonian Mechanics, which has since been shown to be wrong, but is an acceptable approximation for the macro scale).

Let "belief" be reserved for those things (like God) for which their followers require no evidence at all.

I deeply apologise for getting my words slightly incorrect. The theory is widely supported until something better comes along, we know it's not absolutely perfect, but it's the best we've got.

I am amazed that someone believes that god started things in 7 days, is that OK?

erichamster

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

That's quite a ridiculous thing to say. There are an enormous number of practising Christians who converted as adults; in Protestant churches, probably a large majority.

On this I actually agree with Person_one that most of us are exposed to a barage of religious myths and doctrines from an early age so you would be hard pushed to find a religious convert who had had no earlier exposure and even harder pushed to find one who had been genuinely taught to think for themselves, question authority and make decisions based on the evidence.

Tiddlywinks

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Yes, sadly some people use their religion as an excuse to do things which most of us would totally disagree with.

And.... gladly, some people use their religion to inspire them to help others - Salvation Army and Christian Aid for example.

Religion doesn't corrupt in itself - bad people use some ideologies to corrupt - there is a BIG difference.

I don't think a person's religious beliefs should be of interest to anyone but themselves - it is how they conduct themselves and how they relate to their fellow man that counts.

onlyroz

Lotus-eater wrote: »

I deeply apologise for getting my words slightly incorrect.

I wasn't picking on you in particular. I was just raising awareness that there is a fundamental difference between a "belief" and a scientific theory. To a good scientist, the idea of accepting anything without evidence is an alien concept.