Paganism

not sure 'what' that...

Maybe Ariadnes friend is licensed as a registrar?

My daughter's late friend (who was a witch), carried out weddings (hand-fastings), too. When she died, she was cremated and DD and the 'sisters' held hands, surrounded her coffin and sang to her. They all wore beautiful ethereal clothes. Her husband wore a long green cloak and their old lurcher dog also attended the funeral wearing a posy of flowers in her collar. Her friend, who's a priestess, carried out the funeral and it was really quite beautiful. A few days later, when they had possession of her ashes, they had a big party in a field near where she lived and worked, and sent her ashes into the air in a firework! This was what she'd asked for.

feetle when I say Christian country I meant it in the widest sense. So our laws and values are based on Christianity and I was brought up in the Christian faith. In that sense because it is a Christian country, you sort of absorb what it means to be a Christian.

What Prof Dawkins called 'cultural christianity'? But no religion can lay claim to morality, although they certainly try - believe or or not, murder and theft were frowned on before any Ten Commandments were promulgated! Mankind has always lived in groups, and for that you have to have evolved some form of acceptable behaviour.

Well said, feetle!

All social species have moral values. We aren't unique in that.

What feetle says, with knobs on

I think we're the only species to have invented gods though, including pagan ones of course.

Why do all unbelievers quote Professor Hawkins? Are there no other pop atheists in print?

Yes, but he's the Archbishop of atheism.

And I did type Dawkins. I swear I did.

Who gave us a sense of morality?

It evolved.

We don't ask who gave use brains. We know they evolved. Our sense of morality did too, in those brains.

I don't think I've ever quoted Stephen Hawkins.

He's the dumbo of atheism.

Why did right largely win over wrong, in your theory?

Possibly because it made living in groups easier?

Being antisocial works fine when you are on your own in a cave, or just have your browbeaten mate and subordinate offspring (even they will eventually beat you at your own game or leave to find their own territory) but when you live in a group with others as big and strong as you are you soon find that unless you all work together, someone gets no mammoth meat but is turfed out to eat grubs in the desert. The others don't like it if you chase their mates or tell lies about them either, and if you kill one, his friends make sure you join him.

What baubles and elegran said. The societies of social species (ants, bees, meerkats, wolves, etc) would not work if it were a free for all without morals and ethics. It's a survival mechanism. Fewer individuals would survive without socially cohesive rules or, to put it, positively, more individuals survive in a society where there are basic rules of rightness.

Too many commas. Soz.

Bags who is Stephen Hawkins? Should I know?

I think right began to win out over wrong (where it has) when society as a whole became more educated. Education gives more power to the ordinary people.

I meant Hawking. Apologies.

Mankind has always lived in groups, and for that you have to have evolved some form of acceptable behaviour

It is perfectly easy for someone to kill all the members of say a tribe. And that mentality to be reproduced all over the planet.
[I am forgetting my own point by the way]

That happens when the other tribe is perceived as "not like us" so it is not included in the prohibition against killing. The same happens when someone transgresses against the group rules - they have put themselves outside the community so the others no longer have to use the group rules with them. Hence the death penalty.