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| [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, [7], 8, 9, 10 ] |
| Subject: And they say that weekend release is a good idea! | |
Author: Dave (UK) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 22:36:19 11/20/04 Sat In reply to: Newry Nyuck 's message, "The faith of the Commonwealth" on 18:50:43 11/20/04 Sat [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> Subject: Yes,well... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 11:06:11 11/21/04 Sun I am no fan of popery, but that is only because it seems to be the most exteme of Christian sects, and we should oppose extemism and fanaticism in all its forms, whether Christian, Islamic, Zionist, or even secular fascim such as that of Mao. Besides, as far as I'm concerned, the C of E has two functions: firstly, the distribution of week orange squash and tasteless biscuits to the faithfull on a weekly basis; and, secondly, by getting the religion-in-politics argument out of the way at the very outset by making it the state church, it means that we don't have to bother about going on about religion and 'values' in the ordinary course of political debate. In this respect, our state Church has allowed us to be more secular, and this I applaud. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: for soem its more | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 11:09:24 11/21/04 Sun Well for many its more than a place to get squash and biscuits. Its rlegigeon and thus is bound to have some fanatics. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Hm. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:05:11 11/21/04 Sun I don't accept that a certain percentage of lunatics is structurally unavoidable in religious communities, any more that I accept that waste and corruption is an inevitable part of administrative bureaucracy. Education has a lot to do with it. When did you ever meet an educated extremist nutter? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: hmmm oddly enough I cant think of one, not a recent one anyway | |
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Author: Owain (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:27:30 11/21/04 Sun [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Depends on what you mean by "educated", I guess | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:06:45 11/21/04 Sun "Educated" as distinct from, say, "highly trained in a skilled profession". Take my brother, for example: he wrote the programme that ran Sydney's public transport system during the 2000 Olympics (quite well, apparently), but he also manages to believe that the world was created by some sort of deity in 6 periods of 24 hours, and that anyone who fails to agree with him on this is probably concealing horns and a tail somewhere about their person. (I have never asked him how Noah fed the koalas on the ark. I must do that one day when I am in the mood for a civil war.) [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Extremism versus credulity | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:13:27 11/21/04 Sun I think the problem here is not our definitions of "educated" but our definition of "extremism". For example, those quaint Bible Bashers in Tenessee can refuse to teach "The Origin of Species" as the only theory about the emergence of life, on the grounds that the old Bible is another Theory... but they are only extremists when they insist that others accept the same barmy thing and bash them over the head with heavy objects when they refuse to do so. Similarly, your brother may accept the Biblical creation myth, but, unless he runs amok in the middle of Sydney with a Bible in one hand and a battle-axe in the other rather than quietly getting on with religion is his own way and in his own drawing room, then he can't be an extemist, in which case the business about education surely doesn't apply. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: okay, so frothing at the mouth doesn't count | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:17:06 11/21/04 Sun Since he is not known to have actually decapitated any of his interlocutors, I suppose I must accept that he is merely a private fanatic who funds the teaching of myths in science classes, rather than a true extremist. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Hmm | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:42:15 11/21/04 Sun I get uneasy with people trying to define “Educated” as one who subscribes to one’s own world view. Religion is the preserve of the individual, and is a matter of faith. This is distinct from that which is learned or experienced. We can see from all professions, from science and engineering, to artists and writers, that religion is not the preserve of the “uneducated” any more than atheism is the preserve of the “educated”. There's a danger of some intellectual fascism here. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Educated fundamentalists | |
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Author: David Hicks [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:51:43 11/21/04 Sun A friend of mine is in cancer research, but believes in a six day creation... If God is omnipotent, perhaps he could create the whole lot in six miliseconds! Anyway, this man is educated, and works in the medical profession on things a little higher than GCSE biology... I don't know where he thinks cancer sits in God's creation -- maybe a result of the Fall. Still, a bright and pleasant man, and very good in his field in which evolution is not the main concern, but the future... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: You have no idea which view is correct. Do not mistake correlation for evidence. Bigger theories and ideas than evolution that have been held far longer have been overwhelmingly discredited before. | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:51:45 11/21/04 Sun [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Nope | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 20:48:35 11/21/04 Sun I believe that blowing people up, because they do not believe what I believe, is wrong. This is as close to a moral absolute as I get. I have no idea which religion or principle is 'right', and as a concomitant necessity I can not accept that one belief justifies the extermination of someone who holds another belief. The conclusion which I draw from this is not that we shouldn't believe anything, but that we shouldn't blow people up. And we can only reconcile belief and perceived unbelief if we foster a culture in which no one cares what anyone else believes. When I meet people and find out that they are Muslims or Christians or Socialists or vegetarians or people who think that Louis Vuitton is cool, or any of the other beliefs which are a complete antithesis to everything which I believe to be true: I just don't care. Off you go and don't have an abortion; worship the image of an early-Roman execution device because some politically mischievous carpenter was nailed to one; refuse to speak to your children if you find out that they're gay... just so long as you don't expect me to do any of these things, you have my blessing, or, rather, my indifference. That is my side of the social contract: the other side is that the people who hate abortions/common sense/homosexuality treat my pro-choice/Christo-sceptic/gay-tolerant beliefs with the indifference (and ergo tolerance) with which I treat their beliefs. Quod erat demonstrandum. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I'm not disagreeing with you... | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 21:06:02 11/21/04 Sun Do not presume your view is accurate and do not insult other the views of others. It's essentially in agreement with you. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: I don't think education prohibits extremism, I'm afraid. | |
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Author: Nick (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:01:05 11/21/04 Sun Osama Bin Laden is sort of an extremist nutter, and he is a multi-millionaire with an apparent talent for stock market investing and a degree in civil engineering. Was he educated in a way of which you'd approve? Possibly not. But I think he's pretty well educated none-the-less. Not long ago that beacon of light Polly Toynbee wrote that mass-education to degree level would mean that the Tory party would eventually become extinct, since educated people didn't vote Tory. I presume that like me you'd disagree with her. Perhaps neither we nor her are extremist nutters, but I long ago abandoned the theory that intelligent people presented with the same evidence would eventually come to the same view point. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Hah, yes! | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:20:17 11/21/04 Sun Have you noticed that all educated Left-Wingers believe that conservatism exists only amongst ignorant people; and that all educated Right-Wingers believe that socialism exists only amongst the ignorant? I was talking to a charming Scottish fellow only the other day, and we got chatting about politics and, as you can imagine, my comments revealed me to be a die-hard Tory. This didn't surprise him - what surprised him was that someone who had until that point been talking [reasonably] knowledgeably about distinguishing between Platonic and Socratic thought in The Republic by comparing Plato's account of Socrates with that of Aristophanes, could possibly turn out not to be left-wing. He said as much. And I have the same sort of conversation all the time with my two closest friends, both of whom think that Karl Marx had some bright ideas and that people who still wear flannel suits and pocket-watches, like me, should be disembowelled and their corpses suspended from lamp-posts in Mayfair. They seem to imagine that at some point, if I continue reading, the scales will fall from my eyes and I shall cancel my subscription to the Spectator and start reading the Independent instead. They are going to be disappointed. I wish I could claim better open-mindedness from the 'intellectual' Right; but, alas, at Party Conference all too often I find myself listening to Tories deride left-wingery as something exclusive to ignorant and ill-informed people. Of course, "intelligent people presented with the same evidence" will hardly ever come to the same point of view; and this is a problem which logicians, psychologists, and philologists have debated for years without coming to any conclusion. So perhaps my statement that educated people are not fanatic extremists is something of a generalisation. I therefore hereby amend it to "people who are educated are usually not extremist fanatics". While there may be exceptions, such as Usama, Marx, Robespierre, Menachim Begin & Co., I think that, in general, I am right. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |