Pat Condell rocks!
Pat Condell: "God or Nothing"
by leavingwt 40 Replies latest jw friends
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leavingwt
BTS:
"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."
The Governing Body could have written this statement about ex-JWs.
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BurnTheShips
http://eddriscoll.com/archives/008157.php
Umberto Eco puts modern Europe into context--and by inference, the Blue States of America:
It is the role of religion to provide that justification. Religions are systems of belief that enable human beings to justify their existence and which reconcile us to death. We in Europe have faced a fading of organised religion in recent years. Faith in the Christian churches has been declining.
The ideologies such as communism that promised to supplant religion have failed in spectacular and very public fashion. So we're all still looking for something that will reconcile each of us to the inevitability of our own death.
G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.
The "death of God", or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church -- from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code.
It is amazing how many people take that book literally, and think it is true. Admittedly, Dan Brown, its author, has created a legion of zealous followers who believe that Jesus wasn't crucified: he married Mary Magdalene, became the King of France, and started his own version of the order of Freemasons. Many of the people who now go to the Louvre are there only to look at the Mona Lisa, solely and simply because it is at the centre of Dan Brown's book.
The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was once asked if he believed in God. He said: "No. I don't believe in God. I believe in something greater." Our culture suffers from the same inflationary tendency. The existing religions just aren't big enough: we demand something more from God than the existing depictions in the Christian faith can provide. So we revert to the occult. The so-called occult sciences do not ever reveal any genuine secret: they only promise that there is something secret that explains and justifies everything. The great advantage of this is that it allows each person to fill up the empty secret "container" with his or her own fears and hopes.
As a child of the Enlightenment, and a believer in the Enlightenment values of truth, open inquiry, and freedom, I am depressed by that tendency. This is not just because of the association between the occult and fascism and Nazism - although that association was very strong. Himmler and many of Hitler's henchmen were devotees of the most infantile occult fantasies.
The same was true of some of the fascist gurus in Italy - Julius Evola is one example - who continue to fascinate the neo-fascists in my country. And today, if you browse the shelves of any bookshop specialising in the occult, you will find not only the usual tomes on the Templars, Rosicrucians, pseudo-Kabbalists, and of course The Da Vinci Code, but also anti-semitic tracts such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I was raised as a Catholic, and although I have abandoned the Church, this December, as usual, I will be putting together a Christmas crib for my grandson. We'll construct it together - as my father did with me when I was a boy. I have profound respect for the Christian traditions - which, as rituals for coping with death, still make more sense than their purely commercial alternatives.
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leavingwt
Actually, if you tweak that sentence, just a little, I would agree with it. It promotes Liberty over dogma, IMHO.
When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything.
When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything HE WANTS TO.
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OnTheWayOut
"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."
I want to apply that statement to other things, just to show how silly it is.
"It's the first effect of not believing in ghosts that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."
"It's the first effect of not believing in fairies that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."
"It's the first effect of not believing in UFO's that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are."We could go on and on. Reasoning is important, but don't let someone twist yours.
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tec
When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything HE WANTS TO.
Of course, believing in God is something some men want to do, also.
Tammy
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zoiks
So belief in God protects us from all kinds of other nonsensical beliefs? Hmm. Perhaps.
Or maybe believing in UFOs protects us from belief in god?
Or maybe belief in faeries protects us from belief in demonized smurfs? Maybe?
As a disclaimer, I don't believe in any of the above, and I don't feel that my atheism makes me more susceptible to other unprovable assertions. That's just my humble personal opinion.
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leavingwt
Of course, believing in God is something some men want to do, also.
Absolutely. Different men define "God" in different ways, too.
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THE GLADIATOR
I have always watched Pat Condell's videos and am automatically emailed each time there is a new one. He was an English stand up comic for many years. Hard hitting and intelligent he provides a counterbalance to the power that mainstream churches hold.
"But just because I believe that religion is a cynical perversion of the human spirit that exists purely for the benefit of the parasites we know as clergy, doesn't mean I'm not looking for answers to the big questions just like everybody else - you know, the questions that religion pretends it has answers to, because it knows that for some people, anyone's answer is better than no answer at all." Pat Condell 2008
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designs
I believe in something greater than God......