Religion Ask a Christian - Continued in Part 2

[Chief]

Continued in Part Two:

https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/ask-a-christian-part-2.1295001/unread

 

[Roylion]

end of ice age sea level rise seems to be a pretty robust theory of the origin of flood myths that stretch all the way to Australia.

To a point. The rising sea level would have been quite slow, apart from local events such as the Black Sea deluge about 5,500-5,600 BC which may have been quite rapid.

 

[Number37]

Yeah mate I am so uninterested in discussing anything of import with someone who insists on telling me I am “in a tizz” and “jumping up and down and screaming” when the truth is I am as calm as can be.

If you’re that fundamentally wrong about the people you’re engaging with, why would anyone be interested in your bizarre take on the topic under discussion?

Rant all you want; I'll not be engaging further with you.

But it's OK for you to tell me to take a walk, go outside, log off ...because that's not saying I'm in a tizz, that's different. Magically.

My take is only bizarre to you because you don't agree with it.

Einstein was 100% spot on, again, with this critique of atheists:

“fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics”

 

[Evolved1]

But it's OK for you to tell me to take a walk, go outside, log off ...because that's not saying I'm in a tizz, that's different. Magically.

My take is only bizarre to you because you don't agree with it.

Einstein was 100% spot on, again, with this critique of atheists:

“fanatical atheists whose intolerance is of the same kind as the intolerance of the religious fanatics”

Define 'fanatical atheist'.

 

[Number37]

Define 'fanatical atheist'.

I don't think it is wise for me to express my opinions anymore, it upsets too many people.
Read Einstein's God letter for an idea.

 

[Opine]

I don't think it is wise for me to express my opinions anymore, it upsets too many people.
Read Einstein's God letter for an idea.

I just read that interchange of posts. You didn't need to prove the worthiness of your religious belief publicly. But having started, don't be concerned about the effects of robust discussion if the person/s you're engaging with is primarily out to ridicule and embarrass. You should have cancelled the canceller/s before they ridiculously feigned offence and cancelled you. Keep your chin up.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

I just read that interchange of posts. You didn't need to prove the worthiness of your religious belief publicly. But having started, don't be concerned about the effects of robust discussion if the person/s you're engaging with is primarily out to ridicule and embarrass. You should have cancelled the canceller/s before they ridiculously feigned offence and cancelled you. Keep your chin up.

Except that’s not what happened at all.

 

[Opine]

Except that’s not what happened at all.

Don’t complain don’t explain.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Don’t complain don’t explain.

Well I don't know if you're referring to the exchanges I had with the poster (there were two of us), but if you are, you have grossly misrepresented me. I did not "ridicule and embarrass", I did not "feign offence" - in fact I made it clear I was not in the least offended - and I did not "cancel" anyone (whatever TF that means anyway.)

 

[Boston tiger]

What Im guessing is that atheists don't reject a thiests God it's more that they don't possess the concept of the theists God. Hence spaghetti monsters and men with whitebeards up in the clouds come up in the conversation with athiests.
To expect a full blown athiest to suddenly pray to a God in a fox hole would be asking them to do a bizzare and meaningless act. You may aswell ask them to pray to that rock over there .
An agnostic would be all over the prayer thing me thinks in the fox hole or child missing etc.

 

[western royboy]

I tend to take the view of the late KFB Packer, who following a near death experience coined the phrase “Listen Sonny, I’ve been to the other side and let me tell you there’s ******* nothing there”

 

[indoistriku]

Yep. Absolutely there was no historical event of a global flood.

Geologists reject any notion of a global flood, because there is no supporting geological evidence that such a flood ever occurred.

Other experts in various scientific feidls have raised further problems. Why is there no evidence of a flood in tree ring dating? Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years, with no evidence of a catastrophe during that time. Other scientists have raised the problems of various types of rocks such as chalk deposits, that could not possibly be where they are now, such as the cliffs of Dover - if a Global Flood had occurred 2-3,000 years ago. Molecular scientists studying DNA have disputed whether a Flood that destroyed all human life on earth except Noah, his wife, his three sons and his three daughters-in-law could have happened. Mankind may be all essentially related but DNA analysis shows that it is much further back than 2,348 BC, which is the date arrived at for the flood by the chronology/genealogy in the Book of Genesis.

Stratigraphy, Seriation, Chronological Marking, Dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, geological dating, Potassium-Argon dating, Fission track dating, Obsidian Hydration dating, Thermoluminescence dating, Archaeo- and Paleo-magnetism dating, Oxidized Carbon Ratios are all archaeological methods used to date various historical and pre-historical events.

The evidence that they provide, does NOT support the notion of ONE global flood. No supporting evidence exists

Genetic data also shows no evidence of any human bottleneck as small as two people or eight people: there are simply too many different kinds of genes around for that to be true. There may have been a couple of “bottlenecks” (reduced population sizes) in the history of our species, but the smallest one not involving recent colonization is a bottleneck of roughly 10,000-15,000 individuals that occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. That number could get as low as 2,000 people, but that's the absolute minimum. That’s as small a population as our ancestors had, and—note—it’s not as low as eight individuals.

DNA studies have also confirmed that there are living today millions of descendants, of women believed to lived between 12,000 - 45,000 years ago. If the Flood was to have destroyed all men on earth apart from Noah and his family, how is this accounted for? If we add up the genealogies in the Bible, we have Noah's flood in about the year 2348 B.C. That's in the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty and the Yao Dynasty of China. There’s no record of a Universal Flood in those years, nor could there be, as everyone and everything would have been destroyed. This is clearly not the case.

If so, the archaeological record of about 4-5,000 years ago would be replete with Pompeii-style ruins, the remains of thousands of towns, villages and cities, all wiped out by flood waters, simultaneously. Archaeology would show cultural development with a discontinuity as everything was wiped out and Noah's descendants had to restart. The near annihilation of the human race, if it happened, left no imprint on the archaeological record anywhere.

Clearly the Bible states that all living things were destroyed except for those on the Ark, the humans consisting of the one family of eight people. Clearly many of the earth's people are descended from people other than Noah and for them to exist today those ancestors must have survived the "Flood".

The global flood story requires that only eight people were left alive in 2349 BC. In 2000 BC, only 350 years after the flood, the population of the world was 27 million. To go from a population of eight to a population of 27 million in 350 years would require an average annual population growth rate of 4.4%, which is only slightly short of the highest birth rates in the world today. Birth rate and population growth aren't the same thing, and such a high birth rate implies reasons for people to have lots of children very young. The countries with the highest birth rates today have high rates of infectious disease and death, low life expectancy, and political instability, with a median age of 15 and a population growth rate well below the birth rate. This does not much resemble the society of superhumanly-long-lived fathers of nations claimed to have lived over that interval, but stable societies where children can be reliably expected to reach adulthood tend to have much lower birthrates.

An even more severe problem is that sexually reproducing species reduced to a population of eight individuals often experiences a catastrophic (and almost certainly extinguishing) genetic bottleneck; and the more rapid the re-expansion of this population, the more intense the inbreeding. Genetic studies have actually revealed the presence of a genetic bottleneck in human prehistory but that scenario is about 66,000 years too early and at least 2,000 people too populous for the Flood narrative.

Indeed there's no reason to suggest any flood story from any civilisation is more than the story of a large localised/regional flood, such as the filling of the Persian Gulf after sea waters rose following the last glacial period. Global sea levels were about 120 metres lower around 16,000 BC and rose until 6,000 BC when they reached current levels, which are now an average 40 metres above the floor of the Gulf, which was a huge (800 km × 200 km) low-lying and fertile region in Mesopotamia. Human habitation is thought to have been strong around the Gulf Oasis for 100,000 years. A sudden increase in settlements above the present water level is recorded at around 5,500 BC. Then there's the Black Sea deluge, which suggests catastrophic deluge about 5600 BC from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea.

A global flood simply did not occur and there is simply no robust convincing evidence to support that it did.




Quotes from your linked article.

The quotes are absolute rubbish.

Genesis is not a historical work written by Moses. There is no evidence that "Moses" wrote any of the Books of the Bible.

It's possible that the Black Sea deluge MAY have inspired the various Mesopotamian flood stories The oldest Mesopotamian flood story of Atrahasis written sometime between 1800 BC and 1700 BC (which was adapted by the writers of the later Epic of Gilgamesh) and then further altered into the story of Noah, when the Jews wrote Genesis in about the 6th century BC, probably in Babylon.

Two senior scientists from Columbia University have proposed a theory that a massive transfer of water occurred about 5600 BC - over seven and a half millennia ago. They wrote: "Ten cubic miles of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls." "The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days." 60,000 square miles of land were inundated. The Black Sea shoreline significantly expanded to the north and east. The lake's its water level was raised many hundreds of feet. It changed from a fresh-water landlocked lake into a salt water lake connected to the world's oceans."

They have drawn on the findings of experts in agriculture, archaeology, genetics, geology, language, development of textiles and pottery, etc. They postulate that this deluge had catastrophic effects on the people living on the shore of the Black Sea. It triggered mass migrations across Europe and into the Near East, Middle East and Egypt. It may have been the source of many flood stories in the area.

The development of the story of Noah in Genesis goes something like this

2700 BC: Calculated time of the figure of Gilgamesh as per dating of walls of Uruk.
2100 BC: Apparent origin of the oldest Gilgamesh epic (Akkadian, AKA Old Babylonian). Alludes to the Flood, but does not specifically mention it.
Before Hammurabi (~1700 BC): Apparent time period of Atrahasis story, oldest Mesopotamian flood story
1830 BC: Oldest Estimated age of "CBM 13532" - also sometimes called the 'Nippur Flood Tablet'
1600 BC: Apparent origin of the known oldest copy of the Atrahasis story (but likely to have been assembled 1800 - 1700 BC)
1400 BC: Standard Babylonian version including all 12 tablets. Flood story complete as copy of Atrahasis.
1170 BC: Youngest Estimated age of "CBM 13532"
668-626 BC: King Assurbanipal of Assyria finds and stores the oldest preserved copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh in his library. Re-discovered in AD 1849

The approximate time of the writing / assembling of the Book of Genesis was between 600-300 BC in Babylonia.

It's clear that Genesis was written over an interval of many centuries by at least five author/editors. The universal flood story was derived from an earlier Babylonian myth by two of these authors. The Genesis flood myth is obviously based on an earlier Babylonian myth; there are many similarities between the two legends. The Babylonian myth appears to be based on an earlier legend that, in turn, might well have been based on dimly remembered memories of the Black Sea catastrophe, for which there is robust archaeoliogical evidence as having actually occurred.

I hadn’t read the whole article nor did I offer is as a rebuttal. I was trying to establish an agreed upon point with Total Power about the similarities of the two stories.

 

[indoistriku]

From your link

The Book of Genesis is viewed for the most part as an historical work, even by many liberal scholars, while the Epic of Gilgamesh is viewed as mythological. The One-source Theory must, therefore, lead back to the historical event of the Flood and Noah's Ark.2



This is completely false. One scholar doesn't equal to many. I see only one scholar mentioned in the footnote over and over again. Genesis is not scientific, not historical. There was no global flood. Guys like Howard Vos are not liberal neither is NK Sanders. They are both Christians and none of them are liberal.

Roylion

I’m not offering the link as a rebuttal - I’m trying to reach an agreed upon list of similarities between the two stories from which we can proceed to debate.

 

[indoistriku]

Roylion, Total Power

C’mon. I reread my post to see if I hadn’t been clear but the post couldn’t be more clear. It was very concise in stating that I was seeking an agreed upon list from which we could discuss and debate the matter. Meanwhile, I’ve logged back onto to see two posts attacking the link’s article - which I never proffered as a rebuttal or signified agreement with.

 

[indoistriku]

Do Christians think we are in the end of days?

Well, it depends on what is meant by the ‘end days’. If it’s referring to the ‘reign of Christ’ symbolised as a 1000 year period in Revelation, then, yes, the overwhelming majority do. Of course, there’s not one unified thing that all Christians agree on, save the Trinity, Jesus’s divinity, and His death on the cross.

 

[Roylion]

Roylion, Total Power

C’mon. I reread my post to see if I hadn’t been clear but the post couldn’t be more clear. It was very concise in stating that I was seeking an agreed upon list from which we could discuss and debate the matter.

Debate what exactly?

1. That there was a global flood? Here there is no debate. No external evidence outside the Bible supports such a premise.

2. That the Noah story (written about 300 BC) was derived from some older source or sources? There is significant evidence in support of this, including the similarities between the older Sumerian sources and the younger Genesis account. If you think that is not the case then present your argument. Why don't we start with when Genesis (where the story of Noah appears) was written?

Meanwhile, I’ve logged back onto to see two posts attacking the link’s article - which I never proffered as a rebuttal or signified agreement with.

How about you establish your contention and we'll go from there. Mine is clearly outlined.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

I tend to take the view of the late KFB Packer, who following a near death experience coined the phrase “Listen Sonny, I’ve been to the other side and let me tell you there’s ******* nothing there”

The oft-cited near-death experience as suggestion of proof of an afterlife took a bit of a hit when it was revealed that test pilots in extreme G-force situations experience very similar sensations. It appears it's purely a reaction created within the body.

What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain

A close brush can leave a lasting mental legacy—and may tell us about how the mind functions under extreme conditions

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Total Power]

The oft-cited near-death experience as suggestion of proof of an afterlife took a bit of a hit when it was revealed that test pilots in extreme G-force situations experience very similar sensations. It appears it's purely a reaction created within the body.

What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain

A close brush can leave a lasting mental legacy—and may tell us about how the mind functions under extreme conditions

www.scientificamerican.com

I disagree. There is nothing explaining why a dying brain will ease you to death with a spiritual experience? How is it comforting to you an atheist, having a spiritual experience?

The materialist misconceptoons (like pilots) been addressed in Frontiers peer reviewed Journal, i suggest reading this.

Near-death experiences between science and prejudice

Science exists to refute dogmas; nevertheless, dogmas may be introduced when undemonstrated scientific axioms lead us to reject facts incompatible with them. Several studies have proposed psychobiological interpretations of near-death experiences (NDEs), claiming that NDEs are a mere byproduct...

www.frontiersin.org

Many prejudiced position from the materialist and non-materialist angles been discussed here, both are equally dangerous.

How can a person with no EEG and clinically dead for 15 minutes HAVE any kind of awareness and memory without any recorded electrical activity? not Gap theory at all, it's not possible for memory to function without electrical acitivity.

And similar results for meditation as well and in some extreme cases LSD. It disproves scientific hypothesis in regards to 'dying brain' , 'hypoxia' and all the stuff Blackmore wrote in her book which your article stated. Yes it is possible to replicate the experience, but i can't prove it to you, you need to try it yourself. All religious people who had the experience ended up being irreligious! you don't think that's telling? all (or lets say majority) atheists who had such experiences ended up being spiritual. There are literally, 100,000 documented experiences from various cultures, belief systems saying the same ****** thing.

Because we are all wired the same way, it's possible for us to replicate the same experience as well, through meditation and LSD too. This is now science, please read Roger Penrose's 'Why consciousness doesn't compute' hypothesis. You will not be able to compute or measure consciousness cause you are thinking of it as a particle.

The article you quoted was written by Dr Koch, pioneering in IIT, which states consciousness is separate from the brain. When can't NDE's be real if IIT is true? this article proves nothing about consciousness surviving physical death. All the article states is how the PHYSICAL brain and the human mind comes to an end, which doesn't really invalidate the consciousness theories put forward by IIT.

The largest study of NDE was done with Dr Sam Parnia, and he is leaning towards the experiences being real. I had a massive debate with Snakey in another thread and he ended up abusing me when he ran out of substance.

She was technically dead for 15 minutes. How can she remember what happened?

Scientists are studying the memories of those who have died but retained awareness, and they're trying to find medical explanations for these experiences.

www.abc.net.au

Hardly relevant to this thread but this is worth pointing out, Blackmore's Dying to live book was criticised so many times by so many scientists.

people with congenital blindness have NDEs, and there are shared NDEs and explained in incredible accuracy everything including the appearance of the doctor and people in the room. Parnia's collection of NDE is truly remarkable.

Lots of work still to be done on this field but to many like Snakey, this issue is already settled.

Rationalisation has it's limits, there's lots that we don't know about ourselves let alone the universe. Dismissing these as chemical reactions is not rationalising, it's jumping the gun, just like religious people do.

Cool so it's a chemical reaction, show me an EEG to prove it how it happens after clinical death? oh yeah, EEG is flatlined, but yeah sometihing must be going on deep inside the brain then? yeah maybe, but it doesn't explain how memories work without frontal cortex working or temporal lobe working. ZERO electrical activity on all the major areas of the brain as we can measure it right now.

Hence Blackmore's theory is bogus.

 

[indoistriku]

Debate what exactly?

1. That there was a global flood? Here there is no debate. No external evidence outside the Bible supports such a premise.

2. That the Noah story (written about 300 BC) was derived from some older source or sources? There is significant evidence in support of this, including the similarities between the older Sumerian sources and the younger Genesis account. If you think that is not the case then present your argument. Why don't we start with when Genesis (where the story of Noah appears) was written?



How about you establish your contention and we'll go from there. Mine is clearly outlined.

Your initial two statements are inescapably freighted with contradiction. How is it that there is no external evidence for a global flood - even textually - outside of the Bible whilst at the same time exisiting a multiplicity of religious texts detailing events of a global flood from which the biblical authors lifted their alleged ‘story’?

My contention of course is that the Global Flood of Genesis 6 happened and that it is not a literary fabrication nor is it an intertextual reference to any earlier accounts of a global or large-scale local flood.

Of course there is debate. What is it that we would engage in now over our disagreements regarding a global flood?

 

[mcnulty]

My contention of course is that the Global Flood of Genesis 6 happened and that it is not a literary fabrication

Do you believe Noah was able to get two of every species in the planet onto the ark?

Also, do you believe there were dinosaurs were amongst them?

 

[Roylion]

Your initial two statements are inescapably freighted with contradiction.

No they're not.

How is it that there is no external evidence for a global flood - even textually - outside of the Bible whilst at the same time exisiting a multiplicity of religious texts detailing events of a global flood from which the biblical authors lifted their alleged ‘story’?

Not surprisingly many civilisations have written about 'great' floods. Many regions have experienced large localised floods caused by vey natural events such as tsunamis for example.

Several real "great floods" are thought to have occurred in prehistory, including the flooding of the Mediterranean basin, forming the Mediterranean sea, and the breaching of the Bosporus strait, which resulted in the Black Sea increasing to three times its original size and flooding several shoreline communities whose foundations can still be seen today. Megafloods associated with the breaking of ice dams as the last ice age was ending have also occurred and evidence from the North Sea shows that a massive tsunami around 8200 BC inundated the low lying areas known as 'Doggerland'.

In the 4th millennium BC, several ancient civilizations - notably Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley - had existed, and continued to exist, without any sign of total extinction from a global flood. Egypt has a continuous written history going back to about 3100 BC, (plus archaeological evidence of continuous habitation going back to 9000 BC) and the only floods they talked about were the annual flood of the Nile River which irrigated their crops.

That there were large regional floods is is no doubt. To the ancients it must have seemed if the whole world was covered with water. Genesis 6-8 clearly reflects that the "world" that was flooded was really just the area that Noah knew. Certainly Mesopotamian religion, where the Great Flood myth originated involved the worship of forces of nature, at least early on. But by the third millennium BC these objects of worship become personified and became a large cast of divinities with particular functions. The God of Water, the God of Thunder (which was the original function of Yahweh/Jehovah/God) and so on. "God" brought down the Great Flood, which expanded in people's imaginations to become a global flood (becasue it flooded what seemed to them to be the entire workld, but in a reality was just a large localised flood, as has occurred countless times throughout history.

The story of Noah is so obviously a myth, and while it clearly based as it is on a localised, regional flood, it is as an event nothing particularly remarkable, despite its' prominence in the Book of Genesis, most likely first compiled in the 6th century BC.

My contention of course is that the Global Flood of Genesis 6 happened and that it is not a literary fabrication nor is it an intertextual reference to any earlier accounts of a global or large-scale local flood.

There is absolutely NO evidence for a global flood wiping out most of humanity a few thousand years ago and covering the entire world so that there was absolutely no land whatsoever.

If so, the archaeological record of about 4-5,000 years ago would be replete with Pompeii-style ruins, the remains of thousands of towns, villages and cities, all wiped out by flood waters, simultaneously. Archaeology would show cultural development with a discontinuity as everything was wiped out and Noah's descendants had to restart. Indigenous Australians would only have been in Australia for 4,000-5,000 years, not 60,000.

The near annihilation of the human race at this time, if it happened, left no imprint on the archaeological record anywhere.

For example geologists also reject the notion of a global flood, because there is no geological evidence that a global flood occurred.

Other experts have raised further problems.

Why is there NO evidence of a flood in tree ring dating? Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years, with no evidence of a catastrophe during that time.

Other experts have raised the problems of various types of rocks such as chalk deposits, that could not possibly be where they are now, such as the cliffs of Dover - if a Global Flood had occurred 4-5,000 years ago.

Stratigraphy, Seriation, Chronological Marking, Dendrochronology, radiocarbon dating, geological dating, Potassium-Argon dating, Fission track dating, Obsidian Hydration dating, Thermoluminescence dating, Archaeo- and Paleo-magnetism dating, Oxidized Carbon Ratios are all archaeological methods used to date variouos historical and pre-historical events.

The evidence that they provide from around the globe does NOT support the notion of ONE global flood. No supporting evidence for such has ever been found.

Genetic data also shows no evidence of any human bottleneck as small as two people or eight people: there are simply too many different kinds of genes around for that to be true. There may have been a couple of “bottlenecks” (reduced population sizes) in the history of our species, but the smallest one not involving recent colonization is a bottleneck of roughly 10,000-15,000 individuals that occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. That’s as small a population as our ancestors had, and—note—it’s not two as low as eight individuals.

Name me a geneticist that supports the idea of a human population genetic bottleneck 6,000 years ago or 4,000 years ago that would support the human population being only as old as 4-6,000 years, which it could only be if there was a global flood that wiped out all humanity except for eight individuals. No geneticist supports this premise.

DNA studies have also confirmed that there are living today millions of descendants, of thousands of women believed to lived between 12,000 - 45,000 years ago. If the Flood was to have destroyed all men on earth apart from Noah and his family, how is this accounted for?

If we add up the genealogies in the Bible, we have Noah's flood in about the year 2348 B.C. That's in the Fifth Egyptian Dynasty and the Yao Dynasty of China. There’s no record of a Universal Flood in those years, nor could there be, as everyone and everything would have been destroyed. This is clearly not the case.

Clearly many of the earth's people are descended from people other than Noah and for them to exist today those ancestors must have survived the so-called global "Flood". Clearly the Bible states that all living things were destroyed except for those on the Ark, the humans consisting of the one family of eight people.

Of course there is debate. What is it that we would engage in now over our disagreements regarding a global flood?

This isn't a debate. You made a claim that a global flood actually occured for which you have provided absolutely no supporting evidence, other than what is in a religious text written in roughly the 6th century BC.

 

[Opine]

So much effort gathering and presenting information in the hope of weighing the scale of probability to one side, the way a lawyer typically would. But the basis of religious belief is “relationship” and the balance scale approach is arguably more of a problem than a solution when evaluating relationship.

Rather than putting religion on trial as a lawyer might do, diagnose its effect the way a doctor typically would; if its impact has predominately been beneficial, which it arguably has, then !!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

So much effort gathering and presenting information in the hope of weighing the scale of probability to one side, the way a lawyer typically would. But the basis of religious belief is “relationship” and the balance scale approach is arguably more of a problem than a solution when evaluating relationship.

Rather than putting religion on trial as a lawyer might do, diagnose its effect the way a doctor typically would; if its impact has predominately been beneficial, which it arguably has, then !!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I reckon the jury is well and truly out on that one. I grew up in a loving, intensely Christian family. I have deep sympathy and respect and love for many Christians in my family and my life.

And the things I've learnt about the horrors committed in the name of all religions, and particularly Christianity as the belief set in which I was raised, have shaken the very foundations of my moral universe.

 

[Opine]

Well I reckon the jury is well and truly out on that one. I grew up in a loving, intensely Christian family. I have deep sympathy and respect and love for many Christians in my family and my life.

And the things I've learnt about the horrors committed in the name of all religions, and particularly Christianity as the belief set in which I was raised, have shaken the very foundations of my moral universe.

No, on very whole the jury’s not out at all. Not at all. But your religious belief is your own.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

No, on very whole the jury’s not out at all. Not at all. But your religious belief is your own.

I have no “religious belief”. Over the course of nearly half a century I have rid myself of religious belief. It’s something I’ve put a great deal of work into.

Used to get shocking headaches too, but rid myself of them through relaxation techniques and a daily targeted stretching routine.

Look, I don’t want to get into stats at ten paces, suffice to say that even the most ardent religious follower will acknowledge the copybook is more than a little blotted.

And before you say “well nobody’s perfect” I’ll say far too many religious believers give the distinct impression they believe they are.

(Or they engage in that oh-so-obvious transference of saying “I’m not perfect, but Christ is”.)

 

[Opine]

I have no “religious belief”. Over the course of nearly half a century I have rid myself of religious belief. It’s something I’ve put a great deal of work into.

Used to get shocking headaches too, but rid myself of them through relaxation techniques and a daily targeted stretching routine.

Look, I don’t want to get into stats at ten paces, suffice to say that even the most ardent religious follower will acknowledge the copybook is more than a little blotted.

And before you say “well nobody’s perfect” I’ll say far too many religious believers give the distinct impression they believe they are.

(Or they engage in that oh-so-obvious transference of saying “I’m not perfect, but Christ is”.)

What was it you were saying about transference?
Even that jury you suggested was still out will have given those supposedly deliberating the option of swearing by oath.