A Political Thread pt. 2

[McTallshort]

"What is Your religion?" is a tough question. Are you muslim if you don't believe in Allah buy you practice ramadan cause you don't want to disappoint your mother? Are you christian if you go through the formalities of being christian but don't believe in it? I hope one day they start asking people if their cultural system differs from their belief system.

Well I buy the kids Christmas pressies but I'm a complete atheist. I don't feel too bad about it given the Christians nicked Christmas, Easter and all Saints day (Halloween) from the Norse religion

 

[The Seeker]

 

[ncurd]

Well I buy the kids Christmas pressies but I'm a complete atheist. I don't feel too bad about it given the Christians nicked Christmas, Easter and all Saints day (Halloween) from the Norse religion

Secular Christmas is possible there is very little religious iconography is our home. Also plenty of religions celebrate something at winter solstice not just Christianity.

 

[BrokenWing]

"What is Your religion?" is a tough question.

Had this when I first joined up.

"What religion are you?"
"No denomination"
"What?"
"No denomination"
"So I'll just put CofE then"
"No, I'm not CofE"

Like it didn't compute, and I'd be happy just to stick down CofE.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

"What is Your religion?" is a tough question. Are you muslim if you don't believe in Allah buy you practice ramadan cause you don't want to disappoint your mother? Are you christian if you go through the formalities of being christian but don't believe in it? I hope one day they start asking people if their cultural system differs from their belief system.

as ive got older, ive come across more and more people that say their christian...and strict about it, church every week etc....but when i talk to them its comes down to things like they do it because they want to go to heaven...or at least don't want to be punished by god....so selfish reasons which hardly feels i the spirit of things

 

[Bada-Bing!]

as ive got older, ive come across more and more people that say their christian...and strict about it, church every week etc....but when i talk to them its comes down to things like they do it because they want to go to heaven...or at least don't want to be punished by god....so selfish reasons which hardly feels i the spirit of things

I think the older I get it is about the fundamental point - "what is the meaning" of my life. I believe in a God, just not religion. But I do not go to church or follow the bible, and do not believe a God has a direct impact on my life so I cannot technically call myself a Christian.

I suppose strictly I am an Agnostic. I just replace God with "life" in general I can accept that as I can feel myself breathe and see life around me. I think my fellow humans can be kind and generous but they also have the capacity to be unkind and inconsiderate to others. Even completely arseholes and self centred and sadly just evil.

It has never been a straight forward concept in my head.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

 

[Welsh Exile]

as ive got older, ive come across more and more people that say their christian...and strict about it, church every week etc....but when i talk to them its comes down to things like they do it because they want to go to heaven...or at least don't want to be punished by god....so selfish reasons which hardly feels i the spirit of things

This is called Pascals Wager and is incredibly stupid. Yet people still think the logic is sound.

For me, cultural Christian's, or any kind of cultural religious people, are not religious and it's silly to assume so. If you actually don't believe in god but tick the Christian box coz you like Christmas or something is, again, stupid. I'd actually be very insulted if I was a believer and you have these people attaching themselves to your faith when they're not real believers.

 

[Which Tyler]

I think the older I get it is about the fundamental point - "what is the meaning" of my life. I believe in a God, just not religion. But I do not go to church or follow the bible, and do not believe a God has a direct impact on my life so I cannot technically call myself a Christian.

I suppose strictly I am an Agnostic. I just replace God with "life" in general I can accept that as I can feel myself breathe and see life around me. I think my fellow humans can be kind and generous but they also have the capacity to be unkind and inconsiderate to others. Even completely arseholes and self centred and sadly just evil.

It has never been a straight forward concept in my head.

You can be spiritual, without being religious.
You can be religious without classifying yourself under any organised religion.



I suspect that for many people - more than would admit it - being areligious is a fairly passive process.
Start off believing, and going to church etc; then without really thinking about things, stop believing, but maybe keep up with old habits, and eventually maybe give up on the old habits; but haven't really thought about it, so still consider themselves religious because they've just never questioned things.
For others, it's a case of thinking about things, being bothered by the inherent contradictions in all religions, or learning more about the world and deciding there can't really be a god, learning about logical fallacies, and seeing how no religion can stand up to that sort of scrutiny, or simply thinking that belief in 2600 (known) gods are self-evidently silly, so why is belief of the 2601st self-evidently truthful? - for whom being areligious is an active decision - and are far more likely to describe themselves that way (though possibly not publicly).



As for Pascal's Wager, and in the words of Michael Palin "God would see through such a cheap trick" - and they're not religious, they just describe themselves that way on the off chance that they're wrong and god exists, but doesn't exist enough to spot their fakery; and, of course, that they've picked the right religion to pretend belief in.

 

[Welsh Exile]

You can be spiritual, without being religious.
You can be religious without classifying yourself under any organised religion.

Jedi's have the best cloaks. Plus you get a lightsaber. Win win.

 

[ncurd]

Religion is double edged for me some people genuinely do use it to seek to be their best selves and more power to them. In general I find these people do regularly attend services.

Its the ones who use as a shield to their bigotry these I find don't regularly attend but are their denomination when it suits them. Might attend a Christmas service or go to a Church for a performative exercise at times.

Not that I think non-religious folk are any better just they don't excuse it behind a religion.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Religion is double edged for me some people genuinely do use it to seek to be their best selves and more power to them. In general I find these people do regularly attend services.

Its the ones who use as a shield to their bigotry these I find don't regularly attend but are their denomination when it suits them. Might attend a Christmas service or go to a Church for a performative exercise at times.

Not that I think non-religious folk are any better just they don't excuse it behind a religion.

I agree. The reason they can use it as a shield is because religious belief is protected in the same way sexuality and race is. This is what frustrates me the most. Religious belief is not an immutable characteristic like sexuality, race or disability yet it is afforded the same protection under hate speech and whatever which leads some people to be able to use it as a shield to air bigoted views.

 

[Gavin]

I definitely am not religious. Don't see the point of it, especially the Abrahamic religious. That God is evil.

But I do find it humorous that I do more Christian things, like wanting to help refugees etc, than people who profess to be Christians.

But there is a lot of Tweets about people who claim the results are false as they do not remember filling out the census.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Generally the people who most loudly proclaim what good religious followers they are, are the worst of both worlds. They are bad religious people as they don't follow the code of their religion or really care about it and they are terrible Atheists as they blatantly lie about their views and appear to have no moral code, instead hiding behind religion. Whether in reality they are believers or non-believers, they are doing a **** poor job representing them.

A central part of Christianity is about caring for the poor and needy, many so-called Christians could not be further from that if they tried. Openly selfish and xenophobic, particularly in the USA. Christianity also says something about true believers doing their praying in private whilst the fakes loudly proclaim it in public... Again see American Christians.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Why Nigel Farage is wrong about London being 'minority white'

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage claims London, Birmingham and Manchester are "minority white".

www.bbc.co.uk

And the **** stirrer is back with his dog whistle.

 

[Which Tyler]

Why Nigel Farage is wrong about London being 'minority white'

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage claims London, Birmingham and Manchester are "minority white".

www.bbc.co.uk

And the **** stirrer is back with his dog whistle.

I thought dog whistles were supposed to be inaudible to the uninitiated - that's more of a fog-horn

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I thought dog whistles were supposed to be inaudible to the uninitiated - that's more of a fog-horn

Technically he is wrong on some counts but it is very close in many cases and definitely trending downwards fairly rapidly. It does seem a bit daft to respond "Nah it's not a minority! It's 53% and dropped 10% in the last decade!" Really the point to fight is not whether that figure is technically true or not but whether it matters or not. Personally I'd say whether people identify as British and are part of a wider British culture is far more important than their race. If we have large groups of people who don't identify as British, don't subscribe to western values and don't really interact with the rest of a country as a whole, then that is a problem. If however you have people who fit in same as anyone else but just look different then there isn't an issue.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Technically he is wrong on some counts but it is very close in many cases and definitely trending downwards fairly rapidly. It does seem a bit daft to respond "Nah it's not a minority! It's 53% and dropped 10% in the last decade!" Really the point to fight is not whether that figure is technically true or not but whether it matters or not. Personally I'd say whether people identify as British and are part of a wider British culture is far more important than their race. If we have large groups of people who don't identify as British, don't subscribe to western values and don't really interact with the rest of a country as a whole, then that is a problem. If however you have people who fit in same as anyone else but just look different then there isn't an issue.

Yes, but we really know Farage isn't making this point with his twitter post. Appealing to those Tory members who would never vote in Rishi because they can't get it in their head that he is English nationally but at the same time of Indian Ethnicity.

Can't stand Farage. He did this with Brexit and now he has to make himself relevant again with this.

 

[Which Tyler]

Yeah, it's not about technicalities of how accurate or otherwise he is; it's about 3 things (for me)

A] The BBC are actually willing to call him on in his bullshit.
B] He shouting out "I'm a racist, I'm a racist" at the top of his voice, not bothering with the veil this time, as he doesn't think he needs it.
C] Sadly, Farage is back and speaking again

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Yes, but we really know Farage isn't making this point with his twitter post. Appealing to those Tory members who would never vote in Rishi because they can't get it in their head that he is English nationally but at the same time of Indian Ethnicity.

Can't stand Farage. He did this with Brexit and now he has to make himself relevant again with this.

I know it's not the point he's making, he's going for the white genocide belief that we are being outbred and migrated out of existence. It is true that the proportion of white people in the west is dropping as a proportion of the total population, in the same way it is dropping as a proportion of the global population. However pointing out minor incorrect points on the numbers is fighting back on the wrong front. Even if he is technically incorrect now, it will be correct in the not too distant future. Pushing back on the exact number is dancing around addressing the actual point he is making, namely that a non-white population is inherently bad. The rebutting of what he said there seems unwilling to go for the main and important message, instead dancing around a pointless technicality.

There is also the flip side of those being unwilling to accept that there could ever be anything wrong with having a large segment of the population whose mentality is completely alien to other parts of the population. Historically it has always ended in problems. To take some hypothetical examples, a massive influx of Chinese who believe in mass censorship and unwavering fealty to China would have a huge negative effect on the country. An influx of Islamic extremists who believe in the imposition of Sharia law and violent extremism to achieve those aims would also have a massive negative effect on the country. A load of far right Russian nationalists who are huge advocates of fracturing the west and having us at war with each other would have a negative effect. On a more moderate level, a massive influx of people who are unwilling to learn English, oppose British laws, seek to remove various aspects of British life and form completely excluded enclaves are also detrimental to society. Immigration and diversity are not automatically good, there still needs to be a basic buy-in to the ideals we as a country hold.

So Farage presents the side that treats anyone and anything different as automatically bad, and arguing over a technicality is pointless as it doesn't address the main issue. However arguing the main issue by simply denying it could ever cause any sorts of problems is itself just as bad. Farage needs to be called out for his assumption it is all bad but not with a blanket denial it is never bad and anyone who says otherwise must be racist.