Does secularism make people more ethical?

[Skybird]

Let'S analyse that TV-pastor's claims by scientific methodolog. If it survives that, then there is something worth to take note of. Else it is just this: claims and babbling.

TV-evangelicals and money-fixiated sectarians - c'mon sidslotm! Is your reasonability so cheap for sale? It should be more valuable to you. Much more.

Thomas Paine, "If God talks to me, it's revelation. If I tell you about it, it's hearsay

Interesting quote by tom paine, I would say there is belief in what he is saying. I would also say many of the things paine spoke of where truths that he believed in, he motivated people with his belief, and they believed as well. He brought people together under a flag of belief.

I'm not trying to preach, I don't attend Church, but I do believe.
I believe men find truth in revelation that paine spoke of and do great things with that truth. But I also understand that bernays believed. But his belief structure was based on a darker understanding of how to get people motivated to do things.

A total secular society is not far away in the western world, with it we will loose the ability to decern truth, without the ability to believe in truth we are all lost. Paine inspired men to believe, but so did Bernays, European Facists believed in Bernays in the 30s, as do many politians in America and Europe today, the problem we all have is "belief"

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Edward Bernayes, USA.

TV-evangelicals and money-fixiated sectarians

Could't agree more, I was simply using Wigglesworth as an example of larger than life believer. I have read many books about this man, I find him to have been an exraordinary man. What I find alarming is people dismiss belief so readly, when belief is the backbone of any Nation.

If you read about Wigglesworth he was a plumber from Bradford in the north of England. He had a speech impediment and never learned to read and write untill later in life. But what he did have was belief.

[Skybird]

Empirically justified trust (=Vertrauen), and empirically justified expectation of the future - that is the only belief I accept to see some value in. As long as said belief is not followed blindly and uncritically. Anything else is just this: wild and unfounded speculation about fairy tale content.

But that is what relgions want: to believe them blindly and uncritically, not testing their claims for validity and truth. Becasue they cannot deliver under such rules. In order to hide that, blind belief gets declared a moral, noble quality, and asking questions, critically analysing just claims, gets demonised.

I ask you for just one simple quality: evidence that can be repeated and redone by everybody, and is in conformity with the rules of logic and scientific methodology.

It were the ancient Greeks who explicitly made it a criterion that any explanation for observed phenomenons shall not base on references to assumed magical qualities or devine entities or gods or the ideas about the Greek pantheon. Did them well, I would say. And us. Without it, we would not enjoy the little injection at the dentist, no medical surgery, no space program, no boost in our knoweldge about the world and the universe. No subsim games and no diverse blossoming of cultural life and arts. We just would sit in our dark cold cabin and try to arrange deals with our imagined deity: "I give you three prayers a day and a sacrifice once every three months, and you give me a good harvest this year, a healthy delivery for my wife, and the little demon living in my tooth going away."

And the real problem starts when we die: because the deity that we thought out, died along with us. Not good.

[August]

What started out as a thread about the ethical superiority of secular people (stunningly arrogant in itself) has devolved yet again into religious bashing.

Well I believe it is not ethical to take every opportunity possible to belittle the religious beliefs of billions of people just because one does not share them.

It's easy to see why secular people are so disliked.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

What started out as a thread about the ethical superiority of secular people (stunningly arrogant in itself)

Obviously you have not read the opening article then.

Well I believe it is not ethical to take every opportunity possible to belittle the religious beliefs of billions of people just because one does not share them.

It is not polite to push own religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still and let it happen. It is also not polite to express with greatest naturalness that religious belief and empiry/scientific methodology/logic&reason reside side by side, on same eye level. Claiming reasonability for hearsay and religion's claims for respectability and blind believing - that is arrogant and belittling for the potential of human mind!

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Obviously you have not read the opening article then.


It is not polite to push own religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still and let it happen. It is also not polite to express with greatest naturalness that religious belief and empiry/scientific methodology/logic&reason reside side by side, on same eye level. Claiming reasonability for hearsay and religion's claims for respectability and blind believing - that is arrogant and belittling for the potential of human mind!

Except your definition of pushing "ones religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still" means to just mention them in public. If it were up to you all religious people would be locked away in some dungeon somewhere so you wouldn't sully your eyes by having to see them.

That is not ethical to my thinking.

What I find alarming is people dismiss belief so readly, when belief is the backbone of any Nation

What people dismissed was your claim of it being well documented that he raised 29 people from the dead.
BTW I thought the Pennines was the backbone of your nation not belief.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Except your definition of pushing "ones religious beliefs down others throat and demanding them to just sit still" means to just mention them in public. If it were up to you all religious people would be locked away in some dungeon somewhere so you wouldn't sully your eyes by having to see them.

That is not ethical to my thinking.

Good to know. I am always open to learn more about myself, and to be pointed at new, original ways of dealing with the religious pest all around me.

What people dismissed was your claim of it being well documented that he raised 29 people from the dead

Amazon.com, check it out.

The point about ethics is, you don't have to attend Church to believe in what is right, but you do have to believe. Knowing what is "right" can be taught in schools, but to carry them into real life and defend them takes believe. The problem with a totally secular society is that we loose decernment, we open ourselves to the likes of Edward Bernayes who's belief was that we are all here to be used by the few who control and govern.

Tony Blair lied to the electorate about weapons of mass destruction, and got us involved in a un-wanted war. Blair took the Bernayes principal to deceive and control to the limit, because England is now seen, and maybe now a leading heathen nation second only to Japan, it's hardly surprising that the people are fooled.

You have the right not to believe what I'm saying, fine. Maybe I chose the wrong youtube clip to make my point about belif. But my point is, we all for the most believe, it's just we no longer understand what belief is, it's disapearing like our freedom and being replaced by controlling middle class government who offer up cold reason to pacify us, reason = to make an excuse.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by sidslotm

Interesting quote by tom paine, I would say there is belief in what he is saying. I would also say many of the things paine spoke of where truths that he believed in, he motivated people with his belief, and they believed as well. He brought people together under a flag of belief.

While the thread is about ethics, you made a claim that this man actually raised people from the dead. I challenged that, and you haven't responded. As I said "Amazon.com - check it out" is not evidence. That you believe is fine, and I have no argument. I don't know if what you believe is the truth or not. But you made a claim about a supernatural but obviously physical phenomenon, and it is your job to provide direct evidence, not tell everyone else to look it up. If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.

Where are these people? What do they say? Faith healing is cute, but as the old saying goes, "The road to Lourdes is littered with crutches, but not one artificial limb."

Amazon.com, check it out.

Have they got books on the loch ness monster?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...efix=loch+ness
wow 1400 documented pieces so it must be true, do you believe it?
After all this proof of amazon apparently carries weight and 1400 publications on amazon about nessie certainly outweighs 300 on wiggle of the dead.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

If you can't provide that evidence then you need to say so, and admit that it might not be so obvious, or so true.

That'd be the ethical thing to do...

he raised 29 people from the dead.

So this is some VooDoo Priest or what?
Or has the Zombie Apocolypse started?