Do you believe in God

[Nick Thomas]

I shall assume those that are agnostic or athiests do not celebrate Christmas, it does seem contradictory to do so otherwise.

I should think that most atheist would have no problem getting involved in all and any religious ceremonies & festivals, or visiting churches & temples & mosques, or reading religious texts etc. They might like the chocolate, presents, art, historical cultural relevance, literature etc.

[Ian Kingston]

Atheists mostly don't have a problem with attending religious services of various kinds - they recognise that the cultural significance of weddings, christenings, funerals etc. goes beyond the boundaries of the particular religion hosting the service. Richard Dawkins, for instance, is on record as being a 'cultural Christian' and that he enjoys singing carols along with everyone else. Similarly, there is no problem for atheists celebrating Christmas or Easter - they're part of our culture. Both have also acquired numerous secular traditions (trees, reindeer, chocolate eggs, bunnies) which Christians seem to be quite happy with.

I went to a christening (C of E) yesterday. I'm an atheist. I sang the hymns and kept silent during the prayers. It's easy to see that this is not terribly consistent (singing words that I don't agree with but not being willing to say them), but so what? I enjoy the singing (those around me probably didn't!).

I know one Christian chess player. I have no idea what the religious beliefs of the rest are, and it doesn't matter to me. There is no such thing as a Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/... chess move.

[Sebastian Stone]

Agnostic Atheist Apatheist.

Don't Know, Don't Believe, Don't Care.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I know one Christian chess player. I have no idea what the religious beliefs of the rest are, and it doesn't matter to me. There is no such thing as a Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/... chess move.

So all that stuff from AAA about "Jewish defensive chess" and so on was a load of cobblers, then?? I'm shocked, I tell you - shocked!!

[Simon Ansell]

I shall assume those that are agnostic or athiests do not celebrate Christmas, it does seem contradictory to do so otherwise.

I'm an atheist.

If you mean "celebrate Christmas" in the sense of rejoicing in the birth of Baby Jesus, then no, I don't.
If you mean "celebrate Christmas" in the sense of observing the (non-religious) traditions of exchanging gifts, eating nice food and spending time with family during the holiday season, then yes, I do.

I fail to see how that is contradictory.

[William Metcalfe]

I am a athist i refused to be a god parent to my best friends oldest son as i did not want to be a hypocrite.
It was a great honour to be asked so did i do the right thing in refusing.
I have not attended a church service since i was 12 years old i also refused to get married in a church.

[PeterTurland]

I am a athist i refused to be a god parent to my best friends oldest son as i did not want to be a hypocrite.
It was a great honour to be asked so did i do the right thing in refusing.
I have not attended a church service since i was 12 years old i also refused to get married in a church.

I was an agnostic 'till the summer of 1992 and I sort of had an epiphany whilst delivering a lorry load of biscuits to Gloucester.

Basically I realised that the 'metaphors' in religion had acted as DNA on the body politic in terms of the evolution of science.

At the time I had been reading a very interesting book about Chaos Theory by James Gleick and I realised that the history of our species is non-linear in the same way that the weather is non-linear or the stockmarket is non linear.

The biggest mystery for me in terms of morphogenesis is, it must have a
mathematical structure ie we start with meiosis to create the first cell, then
we get mitosis, the first cell doubles and carries on doubling till we end up
with you, me and an elephant or a giant Sequoya in fact all the living
multicellular organisms on this planet, are built by the same almost
miraculous process.

With Chaos Theory there is a very interesting and profound phenomena called 'self similarity' a very good example for this is a cauliflower, when an individual floret echoes the whole cauliflower. What I realised was the kind of mathematical process that creates a body, was creating a super organism called human culture.

The idea that human beings create order and have 'free will' is arrogance driven by ignorance, truth to tell 'arrogance' has simularites to 'confidence' and 'innocence' has simularites to 'ignorance'.

Well anyway, you can read my epiphany in much more detail here.

http://dollyknot.com/nonlinear/HELLO.html

[William Metcalfe]

I should add i dont need any sort of god in my life telling me how to live my life.I am a honest i live a honourable life i do lots of good deeds ect.
In my view the mass religeons = mass brainwashing and explotation of the weak and vunerable.
End of rant lol

[PeterTurland]

Yes but there is top down thinking and bottom up thinking, do you think life is mere details - hurumph.

[Nick Thomas]

I am a athist i refused to be a god parent to my best friends oldest son as i did not want to be a hypocrite.
It was a great honour to be asked so did i do the right thing in refusing.
I have not attended a church service since i was 12 years old i also refused to get married in a church.

There is no right or wrong answer to this. I think most atheist's these days would not have a problem being a god parent but some would feel uncomfortable.

I was an agnostic 'till the summer of 1992 and I sort of had an epiphany whilst delivering a lorry load of biscuits to Gloucester.

Basically I realised that the 'metaphors' in religion had acted as DNA on the body politic in terms of the evolution of science.

At the time I had been reading a very interesting book about Chaos Theory by James Gleick and I realised that the history of our species is non-linear in the same way that the weather is non-linear or the stockmarket is non linear.

The biggest mystery for me in terms of morphogenesis is, it must have a
mathematical structure ie we start with meiosis to create the first cell, then
we get mitosis, the first cell doubles and carries on doubling till we end up
with you, me and an elephant or a giant Sequoya in fact all the living
multicellular organisms on this planet, are built by the same almost
miraculous process.

With Chaos Theory there is a very interesting and profound phenomena called 'self similarity' a very good example for this is a cauliflower, when an individual floret echoes the whole cauliflower. What I realised was the kind of mathematical process that creates a body, was creating a super organism called human culture.

The idea that human beings create order and have 'free will' is arrogance driven by ignorance, truth to tell 'arrogance' has simularites to 'confidence' and 'innocence' has simularites to 'ignorance'.

Well anyway, you can read my epiphany in much more detail here.

http://dollyknot.com/nonlinear/HELLO.html

You might be interested to read Taleb's "The Black Swan". He is a great fan of Mandelbrot.

[PeterTurland]

You might be interested to read Taleb's "The Black Swan". He is a great fan of Mandelbrot.

Yeah I've heard of it, I'm very much toying with the idea of buying a Kindle, my book case is full up and I am losing the habit of reading the dead tree version.

Its my birthday tomorrow and there is a vague possibility my children have bought me a Kindle, if not, I will most likely buy a Kindle next week and Taleb's book.

Yeah the three fathers of 'Chaos Theory' Lorenz, Fiegenbaum and Mandelbrot.

A philosophical, scientific and mathematical revolution in ferment.

[Simon Spivack]

I don't believe in the God hypothesis because there is no evidence to support it.

Laplace summed it up when he told Napoleon he had no need of that hypothesis. Laplace, toujours de Laplace, as Danton might have transformed it.

I shall assume those that are agnostic or athiests do not celebrate Christmas, it does seem contradictory to do so otherwise.

I'm not convinced Chris is aware of how great the borrowings of established religions have been. For instance the notion of a bishop was taken from Zoroastrianism. None of the dates, to the nearest month, of the major Christian festivals are singular to Christianity.

One could argue that the major modern religions are derived from compendia of past constructions of deism. Believers would hold the opinion that this man driven development was divinely inspired, atheists along the lines given by Laplace.

Perhaps we have something to learn from the Swiss theologian Lavater. He became convinced of the correctness of his own beliefs and couldn't understand how others could not see the force behind his version of the truth. However, he did speak out against the persecution of those who demurred.

... live a honourable life i do lots of good deeds ect.

A pernicious meme is that religions are the primary guardians of morality. Thus when an erstwhile government minister who wielded the "trusty sword of truth" was released from prison, I just knew he would catch religion, that being the fastest route to respectability. At my local newsagents, it was a committed man of religion who took advantage of his temporary power through an intentional underpayment, he surmised he would get away with it; and, thanks to his cloak of morality, could do no wrong.

Many religions exploit the loneliness of the vulnerable and their desire to belong to a community. On the other hand, one should not overlook that some of the devout perform good deeds.

The sort of religious belief I find baffling is that the bible is literally true. A thousand years ago the Abrahamic faiths were subjected to the logic of Aristotle. Many accepted that words such as: "there were giants in those days" constituted figures of speech.

Man was born to woe as the sparks fly up.

[Neil Graham]

I know one Christian chess player. I have no idea what the religious beliefs of the rest are, and it doesn't matter to me. There is no such thing as a Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu/... chess move.

You clearly know more than one as a member of the Notts U-140 team that played at Milton Keynes is a retired clergyman. Unfortunately his presence didn't seem to give us any divine guidance especially on Boards 8-16.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Man was born to woe as the sparks fly up.

This is nice. I looked it up and it seems to be a more poetic version of a biblical quote ("man is born to trouble even as the sparks fly upwards" - Job 5:7). Was it on this forum that I saw someone lamenting how the King James Bible language was slowly being lost?

[PeterTurland]

Man was born to woe as the sparks fly up.

This is nice. I looked it up and it seems to be a more poetic version of a biblical quote ("man is born to trouble even as the sparks fly upwards" - Job 5:7). Was it on this forum that I saw someone lamenting how the King James Bible language was slowly being lost?

Nicely put, today women understand metaphor more than men, because they win more arguments with shapely bottoms and lipstick than men do.
All the advertisement punted at us in terms of how we are supposed to feel about life is that Tesco's is the nearest thing we have to 'G-d'.