Who is God?

GA - I hope you can see from the last few posts that people of good will, like Gramps and myself, can be perfectly pleasant to each other and respect the other's right to hold any beliefs they choose.
Of course, I am sure nobody can claim to respect all beliefs, as that would mean respecting the beliefs of those Nigerians who have accused hundreds of women of witchcraft and incarcerated them in 'witch -camps', or the 'pastors' in East London who have helped families to 'beat the devil' out of children. We can say 'I think your belief is wrong, but I respect your right to hold it unless it leads you into hurting others, or unless you try to impose your beliefs on others'.

Yet, there comes a time when people have to stand up against ignorance and tyranny. Often religion is used as a tool to dominate and hold in fear the uneducated or the weak. Sometimes it goes further, as in the case of modern extremism, of all persuasions. Christianity too has its dark ages; witch hunts and Inquisitions for example.

Well said Greatnan. People can believe whatever they like as long as no one is hurt by their beliefs.

I was listening to 'Sunday' on Radio 4 this morning and there was an interesting item about the Christian girl in Pakistan who was accused of blasphemy for burning a page or two of the Koran - now a muslim cleric has been accused of planting the evidence on her. One mulsim scholar was interviewed and he said that the bulk of people in Pakistan were opposed to religious intolerance, but they were too afraid of the minority of extremists to speak out. One man who did was assassinated.

That about sums it up VQ

And we can all argue about whether this or that belief holds up to logical and rational scrutiny better than that or this belief simply because it is interesting. Of course, if anyone wants to believe something that someone else says is irrational, that's a valid choice too. But always with the proviso, well spelled out by greatnan and nanadog and vamp above, that a belief does not lead to actions that hurt others.

Clearly, the beliefs of the extremists in Pakistan belong to the category of wrong beliefs because they end up hurting others and suppressing the good actions of the majority, who become afraid to speak out for fear of violent reprisals.

I do not repsect evil beliefs and, to be honest, I don't respect the people who hold them very much either.

Agreed bags, though sadly the belief that one is right and everyone else is wrong does lead to conflict.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" Edmund Burke.

Or women.

Once a pedant… Although that quotation is often attributed to Edmund Burke (more usually as "It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph") it doesn't appear in anything that he wrote.

However, evil sometimes triumphs in spite of the actions of many good persons.

Just for a laugh absent not sure if this will work as not posted links before.

tartarus.org/martin/essays/burkequote.html

Blimey, that web page is like Pedants' Paradise Nanadogsbody!

Can wait for the follow on essay when!!!!!

Nanadogsbody That was fun.

nanadog

Great start to the day nanadogs

I enjoyed the essay,but then I have always enjoyed the finer points of English grammar. I remember setting a class the task of writing the sentence 'Mr. Jones slept in the House of Commons last night' and putting the word 'Only' in at least five different places to make sentences with completely different meanings.
I don't think it matters whether or not Burke is the author of the quote - it is almost true anyway.
Isn't pedantry fun?

I think it's great that the Pakistani police have identified a muslim cleric as being reaponsible for planting the Quran (sp?) papers in the girl's bag, but I wonder what happens now. If they release her from (send her out from?) prison now, won't the extremists get her anyway.

Very worrying. Poor kid.

It was done to get rid of the Christians from their community. Are there no depths beneath which hate-filled religious nutters won't sink?

I was also reading about a backlash against a British TV history of Islam. It was a well-researched academic work by respected historians, but received hundreds of complaints. It seems the complainers didn't want their important emotional and mythological issues confusing by historical facts.

I'm just sick of fundamentalists of all stripes, from the infamous Westborough Baptists, to Catholic intransigence against women's issues, to ultra orthodox Jews, to murderous hate-filled Muslims. I don't like furious angry atheists either.

Live and let live.

What about righteous indignation when people are not treated fairly? I can get pretty angry about abuses of human rights in the name of various religions.

"Furious, angry, atheists"

Who? Where? I've yet to come across one. All the obvious, well-known, outspoken atheists come into the category intelligent, rational beings who are trying to prevent abuses of their fellow human beings.

And they don't give a damn what other people believe; what they're trying to do is prevent practices based on belief alone from being imposed on people who don't hold the beliefs. In other words, they are campaigning for fairness so that we can all live and let live.