How prevalent is atheism?

[Alastair 12]

Many well respected scientists have had strong religious beliefs.

 

And I'm no slouch. However, it depends whether you regard 2 degrees as educated and intelligent or not.

 

What well respected scientist has strong religious beliefs nowadays?

 

I know there were plenty of religious scientists in the past such as Faraday who was a member of a sect that believed in the absolute literal truth of the Bible. Belief was more widespread then and science has since shown that the world can be explained without invoking a supernatural power. In fact it's in the nature of science to explain things rationally and not resort to the supernatural.

[mills 10]

I believe a scientist can be respected as wells as being deeply religious, but when a scientist starts to use science to prove religion or religious events, they are undermining the fundamental concept of religion which is faith.

[AtticusFinch 10]

I sincerely hope so.

Although I respect other people's faiths I can't wait for religion to be banned from non denominational schools' assemblies.

 

I think that RE is a good idea though, it's important to find out about other people's beliefs and traditions, it encourages you to question your own beliefs.

 

But prayers in assemblies is one of my pet hates!

 

This is one thing that really winds me up as well. At my middle school we had assemblies four days a week and would always sing christian hymns. After I left I always assumed this was something particular to that school, but then I found out several years later that all schools must have some form of religious worship, usually christian based. It shouldn't happen in a secular society.

[Wildcat 10]

There has been a steady decline of very roughly 5% per decade in christian belief for the last centaury, and the decline is mirrored in islam, in this country at least.

 

.....

 

As an atheist, it’s good news, so long as people don’t replace the traditional religions with new-age cobblers.

 

What have cyber boots got to do with this

 

cyber boots

[Wildcat 10]

It's compulsory in that they shut the office down so there is no alternative but to go or take annual leave. It can be argued that having to take annual leave to avoid doing something that is against your religion/other beliefs is discriminatory, because it leaves you with less leave to use when you actually want to use it.

 

Quite right and you are legally protected from such discrimination. Atheism is a belief and you are protected just like any religious person is under the same legislation. You should be credited time to go home if they have shut the office and essentially locked you out. Talk to your union, a CAB or ACAS for advice on proceeding. Probably the best first step is look at this website, at bottom of page is a 56 page pdf. Normally just showing your employer a print off of your rights and asserting them is sufficient, but if not and you need to pursue it further remember you need to raise an internal grievance\complaint, if that isn't dealt with within a month, submit an employment tribunal application (the latest you can submit the ET is 3 months from date of incident). As said before get Union, ACAS or CAB advice.

[Wildcat 10]

How delightfully patronising of you! You'll allow me to be an atheist, but if I follow any sort of moral code, then it's not because I am an intelligent human being who can work out what's right or wrong, it's because I retain my "Christian values".

 

Essentially the ethic people lazily often ascribe to Christianity is the rule of reciprocity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Far from being exclusively Christian it is a value recorded in every religion and by every ethical thinker (even the Marquis de Sade). Wikipedia cites an ancient egyptian reference dated to between 1970-1640 BC.

 

If you think about it whilst the expression of it is neat and catchy, it is no more than a pre-requisite for living socially. A society that did not ascribe to this at least minimally would not be able to function at all. Ethics is a function of us being social animals and needing to get on and cooperate with one another. There is no need to attribute ethics to god or anything metaphysical, indeed to do so involves losing personal responsibility for moral decisions that brings with it more dangers than benefits.

[Dozy 11]

Essentially the ethic people lazily often ascribe to Christianity is the rule of reciprocity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Far from being exclusively Christian it is a value recorded in every religion and by every ethical thinker (even the Marquis de Sade). Wikipedia cites an ancient egyptian reference dated to between 1970-1640 BC.

 

If you think about it whilst the expression of it is neat and catchy, it is no more than a pre-requisite for living socially. A society that did not ascribe to this at least minimally would not be able to function at all. Ethics is a function of us being social animals and needing to get on and cooperate with one another. There is no need to attribute ethics to god or anything metaphysical, indeed to do so involves losing personal responsibility for moral decisions that brings with it more dangers than benefits.

 

I think that would be a more appropriate response to Greybeard's posting, rather than mine.

[Greybeard 10]

How delightfully patronising of you! You'll allow me to be an atheist, but if I follow any sort of moral code, then it's not because I am an intelligent human being who can work out what's right or wrong, it's because I retain my "Christian values".

 

I wasn't patronising anybody but if you feel the need to be patronised, - then you're very welcome

[JoeP 11]

Essentially the ethic people lazily often ascribe to Christianity is the rule of reciprocity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Far from being exclusively Christian it is a value recorded in every religion and by every ethical thinker (even the Marquis de Sade). Wikipedia cites an ancient egyptian reference dated to between 1970-1640 BC.

 

 

Actually, the law of reciprocity is certainly a part of Christianity - as it is of many spiritual belief systems, but isn't the core of Christianity.

 

Christians living their faith in the world, and performing charitable or 'good' deeds, do what they do not because of fear of damnation or of a desire for reciprocity, but because it's how they can best worship Christ in their day to day life by exhibiting humility and offering up service to God.

 

It's a subtle difference, but important; a Christian will do good even with no hope of reciprocity, because of their Faith.

 

The benefits of the deed are identical to the recipient whether done by someone of Faith, an atheist, an agnostic, whoever.

 

Just do good in the world; why yo do it is up to you and you shouldn't have to justify it to anyone.

 

I found this the other day - it sort of works for us all, atheist,agnostic or believer.

 

http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/

[plekhanov 10]

Actually, the law of reciprocity is certainly a part of Christianity - as it is of many spiritual belief systems, but isn't the core of Christianity.

Wildcat never said that the golden rule wasn't part of Christianity but that it is neither exclusively Christian nor of Christian origin and has been independently arrived at by many thinkers.

 

Christians living their faith in the world, and performing charitable or 'good' deeds, do what they do not because of fear of damnation or of a desire for reciprocity, but because it's how they can best worship Christ in their day to day life by exhibiting humility and offering up service to God.

 

It's a subtle difference, but important; a Christian will do good even with no hope of reciprocity, because of their Faith.

In your church perhaps, others place a great emphasis on the necessity of doing what god says to avoid his wrath.

 

It should also be noted that religious faith can often give people a rather skewed notion of what 'good' is (such as for example distributing anti-condom propaganda), after all when people's immortal souls are at stake surely a bit of lying, coercion and repression are justified if it's for the 'good' of their souls.

[Greybeard 10]

Essentially the ethic people lazily often ascribe to Christianity is the rule of reciprocity "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Far from being exclusively Christian it is a value recorded in every religion and by every ethical thinker (even the Marquis de Sade). Wikipedia cites an ancient egyptian reference dated to between 1970-1640 BC.

 

I wasn't being lazy (and certainly not patronising as Dozy claims).

 

Virtually all children of my generation were brought up as 'Christians' and so were my parents, and their parents....back through the generations.

 

Christainity and it's teachings have been an essential ingredient in the morality of British life for centuries. From my point of view it is only in the last 40 years or so that morality in the UK has become predominantly hedonistic rather than idealistic. People still pay lip-service to 'reciprocity' as you call it but you only have to look at the problem of school bullying these days (for example) to realise that 'do as you would be done by' has fallen by the wayside.

 

And in spite of what plekhanov claims misogyny and homophobia were not part of the curriculum at my CofE primary school and sexual 'morality' wasn't a subject I had to face up to until some time later.

 

We do remember don't we that I was and am talking about the morality instilled in children ?

[JoeP 11]

Wildcat never said that the golden rule wasn't part of Christianity but that it is neither exclusively Christian nor of Christian origin and has been independently arrived at by many thinkers.

 

O....K....and I'm not sure why you're picking me up on this.

 

I think the OP and I agreed - all I was saying is that it isn't central.

 

In your church perhaps, others place a great emphasis on the necessity of doing what god says to avoid his wrath.

 

It should also be noted that religious faith can often give people a rather skewed notion of what 'good' is (such as for example distributing anti-condom propaganda), after all when people's immortal souls are at stake surely a bit of lying, coercion and repression are justified if it's for the 'good' of their souls.

 

Plekhanov - it's not 'my' Church - it's the tenets of the Christian faith. How individuals choose to interpret that is up to them but the bottom line is that's what belief is about.

 

As for morality and what's good - despite what you seem to believe, all teh evils in the world can't be laid at the door of people who have faith. Quite a few are fom atheists as well.

 

As you're determined to, as usual, turn this thread into another one of the many threads that you flatten with your steam-roller arguments, it's not worth us debating. Let's just assume we'll disagree.