Christian Grans

Lilygran I haven't checked but I would make an educated guess that praising doctors isn't a massive topic on the Health thread. Health and well-being/ill health and sickness being far more likely subjects. The analogy is a reasonably fair one.

Meanwhile, as has been endlessly pointed out, religion affects everyone in society regardless of whether they have faith. Talking about it is not the prerogative of those who have faith.

Mishap I'm sure what you say applies to you but I'm also sure I am not mistaken in seeing hostility and a degree of triumphalism in some posts. The good things you mentioned are outweighed entirely in some posters views by the bad things, some of which happened centuries ago.

Thanks ga that's an interesting article and i could identify with much of what he says. I share that philosophy of being open to learning something from people from all walks of life. It's just that I don't attribute any of that to a god. Similarly, I don't attribute all the bad things that happen in the name of religion to people who do believe in a god. It's the corruptibility of individuals and groups within churches and non-religious organisations that gets to me, and we have discussed different organisations here on Gransnet several times. As this thread is under Religion and Spirituality, we're on the issue of Christians. If it was a Health or Politics forum, I doubt we'd touch on Christianity. Greed and prejudice can be found anywhere, sadly.

Yes, I read the link and agreed with the general gist of it. But I must point out that my lack of belief in a god is not because of the bad things that have been done in the name of religion, nor will I begin to believe because I meet some very good, decent people who are believers. It is quite irrelevant to my atheism whether certain people or churches are good or evil - nothing could make me believe in a supernatural being, just as nothing could make me believe in fairies.
Certainly, the first cracks in my catholic faith were caused because I began to question some of the truly horrible things I was taught at school - original sin, purgatory, a blood sacrifice. I then went on to study and discuss, not just Christianity, but other religions and came to the mature conclusion that it is all a con-trick played upon the masses by a few powerful people as a way of controlling them. In the total lack of any evidence of a good, or even an indifferent, supreme being, I choose not to believe. If anybody else chooses to believe, whether for emotional comfort or other reasons, that is entirely up to them - as long as they don't try to influence legislation which it is incumbent on me to obey.
This is my sincerely held belief, to which I am entitled and it is not intended to insult anyone else (although I expect some people will take it that way!)
If you are very sure of your faith, you will not be in the least bit bothered by my opinions, any more than I am bothered by yours, so why complain about them?

Greatnan I think some Christians would feel intimidated by what might appear to them to be quite hostile responses to expressions of faith. I have said elsewhere on this forum that while you non-believers enjoy the cut and thrust of what you think of as purely intellectual debate, it means something rather different to believers. I have come across this phenomenon in a number of real life, not virtual, contexts. You would not believe the animosity that is expressed towards members of faiths, Christian more than others, in some workplaces, for example. It puts people off engaging in debate or discussion.

Lily - please don't confuse anti-religion with absence of faith - they are not the same thing. People do have serious concerns about religion - I am sure it is obvious why - but that does not mean that they do not recognise some of the benign and positive aspects.

Oxfam, Christian Aid, care for others in their community - let us clock them up as plusses for christianity. But do not forget repression, global conflict, guilt, fundamentalism etc.

Absent I don't think your analogy is exact. Perhaps if most of the posts on the 'Health' thread are knocking doctors, it might be. I haven't looked at the OPs on all the threads. I will. I did do a very back-of-a-fag-packet investigation into the posts on this thread and found a majority 2/3 were actually anti-religion.

Thank you activist for the interesting link. What I read into his article is that we should not judge christianity by what the majority of christians do (because he sees a lot of it as unacceptable - quite rightly) but we should listen to his version of christianity.
I am sure I do not need to explain the problem for those of us looking in on all this. We are to ignore all that has been done in the name of christianity and listen only to those christians whose moral standpoint accords with ours.
He cannot have it all ways - either christianity is a force for good or it has and does create huge problems and conflict.
It is precisely this corruptibility of religions that concerns me - they are menifest through the greeds/prejudices of people and this is their danger.

Lilygran, if more believers wanted to post, they would! You can't really expect those of us who really enjoy these discussions to stop posting because some other people don't want to post. Nobody owns any thread - many of mine have been 'hi-jacked' but I don't complain.
Atheism is a 'stance for living' or a philosophy of life, just as much as religion. Please don't try to exclude any group of members from any thread - that is hardly a good advert for Christian inclusivity!

It could well be argued that it is the atheists who are continually subject to attack, just for stating our beliefs, but we don't complain. We are all adults and capable of stating our opinions without taking offence when people disagree with us.

I became a Christian after studying the New Testament in my teens (there are no other Christians in my family). I didn't attend a church until more than two years later and when I did I came to realise that 'church' as we understand it now is very different to the picture painted in the New Testament. Many, many years have passed since then and I now am part of what, in Christian circles, would be described as' emerging church'. My faith is encouraged and informed by people such as Danielle Strickland, Shane Claiborne,
Steve Chalk and Andrew Marin. The letter penned by Shane Claiborne (below) echoes many of my own thoughts and feelings.
www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2009/shane-claiborne-1209

Lilygran A thread entitled Health will also include – and, indeed, might find itself weighted in favour of – discussions about illness. The sick should get their own thread?

Not suggesting a separate special thread for Christians! There is one titled 'Religion and Spirituality' and most of the posts on it, including the OPs are from atheists. Get your own thread! While threads meander and maunder, they usually start off relevant to the topic. Just look at some of the OPs!

Mishap you have clarified what I was trying to say earlier on the other thread. We are all entitled to our views and many of us come to Gransnet for interesting debate. I want to hear the debate develop and be tested with questions and alternative suggestions. That doesn't make it personal attacks or rudeness, it demonstrates the strength of certain views and beliefs, which is fascinating. If anyone looking in perceives that in a negative light, that is their issue, not those who are debating. Perhaps they might take a look at why they continually let it bother them. It does get frustrating, when in the middle of an interesting discussion, to have someone come along and sabotage it with unfounded complaints.

ElsiJoy I do not think that anyone is of the opinion that you are pushing your christian views on others (or at least I do not read that in their threads, or in yours) - what I think is being said is that society does this via for instance school - some very relevant examples were given of how this happens. This is not healthy and is quite wrong in principle.

Religion (or faith as you wish us to say) is in a different league from golf, which as far as I know does not permeate society, does not deal in fundamentals and has caused no wars!

I am not anti-religion per se, only anti the problems and miseries it has caused and continues to cause.

My local church is entirely benign in its activities and principles and I have no problem with it - the same cannot be said for all churches and religions, and it is only to be expected that this is of concern to some posters. I know it is of concern to many people who do have a religious faith too.

These are interesting topics to debate, but it is important that people are able to do this without becoming offended or feeling they are being threatened.

Caught the end of an interesting programme OH recorded on creationists. Worth a look I think.

I don't think anyone has ever complained about Christians posting anything they like. We atheists welcome the chance to debate about a subject that is so influential in all our lives, whether we want it to be or not.

Ceesnan is anyone complaining about Christians wanting to talk about Christianity? (That is generally rather than on a protected thread.) Have any atheists or agnostics told Christians to shut up? Surely it is perfectly acceptable for atheists talk about Christianity, Tories to talk about Socialism, women to talk about men and so on.

But Bags, don't you see that if, in your last post, the word Christian was substituted for Atheist/Agnostic that is exactly what has happened here?

Ah, a rose by any other name................

Indeed, absent. Very pertinent and important points.

I came back to revise my last post. Actually, we're not quits, those of us who want to talk about atheism and related subjects and those who complain about us doing so. All the complainers are essentially saying is "Shut up". There is no actual substance about the subject in hand. And the shutups recurr on various threads which, it seems to me, the complainers only join to complain about. Maybe they just like complaining. I don't see the point of joining a thread you don't like otherwise..... except, of course, to say shutup.

Oh well. Takes all sorts, I suppose.

I think this is the first time that anyone has suggested that a thread should be established for the exclusive use of one group of members. Presumably this would involve not such much monitoring as strict enforcement – something else that is not characteristic of Gransnet. Far from the same old, same old and not something any of us has read until now.

Quits, then.

I get fed up of reading all the complaints all the time.

OED 1971 gives as one of the definitions of 'secular': 'Belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the church and religion; civil, lay, temporal. Chiefly used as a negative term with the meaning non-ecclesiastical, non-religious or non-sacred'. I don't expect ElsieJoy intended to use it negatively but simply as a true description of the posts. It's quite common usage in my experience while the use as meaning specifically about the separation of faith and state is actually quite restricted.

You don't have to read it, moved. Anyway, it's not the same old to the same people unless the same people choose it to be, if you see what I mean! There are thousands of members on gransnet, and new ones all the time who won't have read what you like to call the "same old". Your complaint about the "same old" is taking on the same old "same old" tag as what you're complaining about.

I get fed up with reading it all the time.