Thought for the day.

[reddragdiva]

• The Atheist Bus Campaign. Please give so that they may grow.

• Blaspheming buses will burn in Hell, say Christians.

Religion is, in my opinion, a plague of stupid upon humanity. But I see no hope of this changing while humans are humans. And it's not like there aren't lots of plagues of stupid about. Religion evolved when humans realised they would die, to counteract this rather depressing thought.

(Thus, evolution created God to do its work.)

Much as the practical answer to "what is Man, that thou art mindful of him?" through history has been "people are those that fight back hard enough to make me take their concerns seriously," so my own primary consideration of the religious is "are they arseholes to live with? can I tolerate their practical behaviour in society?"

I had an interesting discussion with alextiefling (an active, thinking, believing Christian) on the way back from BiCon about this. Destructive cults versus those religions that have been around long enough not to kill off their followers. e.g. Mormonism 1850 versus Mormonism 2008. The former were dangerous nutters on a par with Scientology, the latter are a bit weird and very conservative but mostly pleasant and livable normal folk.

(My girlfriend is a baptised Christian and a member of the local CoE. We're likely to be sending Freda to the Church primary school.)

Think of cults as ebola, active CoE membership as herpes. Now imagine a world with endemic ebola, but those in the middle of a herpes flareup are basically immune.

(Other memetic afflictions, such as communism, can also provide immunity to the ebola.)

p.s.: life is not inherently meaningful, and you are going to die and disappear entirely. Jussst dussst.

(Does the soul of someone with Alzheimer's stay senile for eternity? Why/why not?)

Comments

[gths.livejournal.com]

They could always go back to a brain backup before the files start to become corrupt. Hell, they didn't remember anything after that so why not?

[reddragdiva]

That's in Stross 3:13 in the New New Testament, right?

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, Anglicanism was *designed* to be an antidote (see: "via media").

I say this as a baptised Anglican and irregular attendee at Christmas services and the like. A CoE service is the one place you can pretty much depend on not having anyone ask you uncomfortable questions about whether you've accepted Jesus as your lord and saviour. They may offer you a cup of tea after the service, though, and try and get you to sing in the choir.

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

Religion evolved when humans realised they would die, to counteract this rather depressing thought.
I think at least some religions evolved simply as rulesets of socially acceptable behaviour.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

(Does the soul of someone with Alzheimer's stay senile for eternity? Why/why not?)

IIRC, and I may not[*], the Roman Catholic answer is that the senility and any other such imperfections go away in the afterlife. At least if you go to the good place. Why? It's heaven, so everything is perfect and stuff.

[*] CCD was a long time ago, and it's not like I've been all that hugely observant the past ~9 years, to say nothing of the *slight* doctrinal issue that came up in '97.

[poggs.livejournal.com]

"Any bus which allows itself to be abused in this way will spend eternity in the company of Satan's bus."

So I giggle slightly, and remind myself that the Route 73 is Satan's bus because it's uncomfortable, hot and packed with annoying people. Oh, and a Bendybus, so in the early days, I guess it would have caught fire too.

"They will burn alongside gay buses, buses that have had abortions and buses that knowingly took people to see Jerry Springer: the Opera."

Buses that have had ABORTIONS? OK... *backs away slowly*

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You'll need to visit schools and make up your mind, but the Ofsteds on St Marys are really poor. Of course, if it's important to you that your child is educated along with lots of other Christian children, then it's probably the school to go for. My two both went to Henry Maynard; in both the infant and junior schools, the headteachers who so impressed me when choosing the school have moved on now, but I am very happy overall. Marianne was an easy child to teach, I think, but enjoyed her time at primary school; Jonathan is much more challenging and the school is giving him loads of support.

Marianne's at Walthamstow School for Girls now, and is loving it.

[lpetersson.livejournal.com]

Once you get outside of zone 3 they do all sorts of krazeee things in those things...

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Bollocks to Ofsted. They mean so little you wouldn't beleive.

[vatine]

Not to mention what the 86 bus regularly does with the 69 bus (it's not the passengers, it's the buses themselves).

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

Is that icon looking ever more like Sarah Palin, or vice versa?

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Is the CoE Christian in any sense beyond the superficial? I recall some senior clergyman in it once stating publicly that, well, all this God stuff is just a metaphor and there isn't really a God, you know. I hear that the Unitarian Universalists do much the same thing in America (only with less actual Christian symbolism).

The ebola/herpes metaphor could have something to it. The least religious societies are often those with inoffensively mild state religions (Scandinavia, with its state Lutheran churches, comes to mind), whilst I've read that America's religiosity stems largely from the official separation of church and state allowing virulent strains of religion to flourish unchecked.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Tht doesn't sound to me like something CoE people tend to believe.

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

"Behave yourselves!"
"Why?"
"Cos GOD will get ya!"
"Oh Noes!!!11"
etc
?

[sciamachy.livejournal.com]

Hee... Funny - I posted something vaguely along these lines in my SL Blog:
http://slblog.sciamachy.org.uk/2008/10/explico-algunas-cosas.html

[rbarclay.livejournal.com]

In a nutshell, yes.

[steer.livejournal.com]

(Grin) There's a certain type of atheist who gets more upset by religion when it's reasonable. If you start saying "the bible isn't literally true" and "well, that's just offered as a metaphor" you can receive a sharply worded lesson on what does and doesn't count as proper religion.

I find it quite comic really, I've genuinely seen atheists berate people for not being a "proper" christian. At heart, if you don't want to beat up gays some atheists aren't really interested. :-)

[grega.livejournal.com]

I prefer to think of myself as worm food as opposed to just dust. Of course the cost of being buried could well make me change my mind.

Damn capitalism for infringing on my beliefs!

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, some buses just don't understand that bringing Minis into the world is God's work.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

In a very real sense, the Unitarian Universalist belief system is not Christian - many of its followers are Christian, but some are not. The religion is structured such that it doesn't really matter which face of god you prefer.

[reddragdiva]

It's the curse of having that haircut with an hourglass figure, I suspect.

[reddragdiva]

Oh yeah - the dietary laws in Leviticus are a perfect example. For people too stupid to do sensible things because they're sensible, tell them GOD TOLD YOU.

[reddragdiva]

A thinks they're not too bad, F will be very bright indeed and A is around the church and school enough to be able to repair any problems with a quiet word and the threat of a glare.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

(Does the soul of someone with Alzheimer's stay senile for eternity? Why/why not?)

I guess the simple answer would be that the soul was never senile in the first place - only the brain was.

[vatine]

FWIW, Sweden is now no longer state-churched (about 10 years, I think). The divorce of state from church started about 20 years ago and the marriage was back in, um, 1550-or-so, I think.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. Has evangelical religion become more popular in Sweden since the end of the state church?

[barakta]

Agreed. Mum's school got outstanding on teaching and my mum is so appalled she's probably going to register her objections formally in writing.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

The dietary laws, the hygiene laws, the slaveowning[*] laws....

Not that people actually need organized religion for this kind of crazy, either.

[*] Apparently the Boston subway system is powered by human slaves on giant hamster wheels. I had no idea.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised in the slightest. My mum's school has been in deep shit with them. They just don't look at the right things. They fail them because the SATS results aren't good enough without taking into account that half the kids who got a 2 (just below the lowest 'acceptable') had LEARNED TO SPEAK ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT YEAR, or similar.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

Well, yes.

(Also it says in Revelations that when you reach the afterlife you get anew body, so nothing that's wrong with you could possibly remain. That's actually most of the point of the whole 'getting a new body' thing.)

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

There is the P.J. O'Rourke line about Anglicans devoutly worshipping nice clothes and good manners.

Modern Anglicanism really does seem to be a religion that has evolved from its original purpose (keeping the Catholics out of your face) to pretty much be all purpose Christianity Lite

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Some London buses have refused to start, insisting the adverts have forced them to choose between their faith and their job as a bus.

Ahhhhh. Funniest thing I've read today; thank you.

[reddragdiva]

The Daily Mash keeps annoying me by coming up with the really good ideas first.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

I did wonder if you were moonlighting for a second, I must admit.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

As a member of the C of E, I'd like to think we're fairly firmly Christian. Can you remember which clergyman you had in mind? We accommodate a range of opinions, but I don't recall that particular brand of wishy-washy equivocation at a senior level.

[reddragdiva]

Richard Randerson was getting there.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

That still doesn't look quite like 'just a metaphor', though. Similarly John Shelby Spong and Tom Wright.

[reddragdiva]

Mmm. Tom Wright was the first thought that sprang to my mind when Lars said that.

[reddragdiva]

I mean acb, not Lars.

[redcountess]

*nod* That sounds more like modern Quakerism.

[vatine]

Don't know, I have spent most of the intervening decade living in Foreign. However, I still have probes inserted into the old country (a.k.a "peopel I know and communicate with")

As far as I am aware, the core of evangelical church-goers is about the same as it's always been (there may have been a shift between specific churches, but no massive new recruitment). The only upswing in religiosity I know of was a steady rise of people engaging in ritual magic, assorted pagan/neopagan/wiccan/whathaveyou through the 80s and 90s.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

*nognognog*

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

Maybe they've figured out that if you already sat through the service with prayers, recitation of a creed, and a sermon based on scripture, if you're paying attention you'll be thinking about stuff anyway and if you don't want to know there's no point pushing the issue.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I think a proper understanding of atheism is likely to lend a far more effective immunity than buying into a different religion.