Things you don't get.

[stoneyburn hibs]

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Same here. I was on a boy's weekend in Prague recently where some of the guys would have happily spent the whole weekend in titty bars. Don't get me wrong, I like titties as much as the next guy but there's just something incredibly seedy about these places that makes them sexually sterile in my opinion.

I'm also in that category, been to them for stag do's and Xmas nights. It's all a bit meh, and doesn't sit right.

[heretoday]

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Prosecco

Just a cheap/worse version of champagne, which I'm not overly keen on anyway.

It became a big thing amongst women a few years ago and now seems to becoming popular with guys too

Gives you heartburn. Like paint stripper.

[Scouse Hibee]

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I'm also in that category, been to them for stag do's and Xmas nights. It's all a bit meh, and doesn't sit right.

Have never been in one either and have left groups rather than enter. Too seedy by far.

[Jay]

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I wouldn't really have expected octopus' balls to taste anything other than vile.

Yep it met my expectations.

[McD]

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Have never been in one either and have left groups rather than enter. Too seedy by far.

Same here also

[Hermit Crab]

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I'm also in that category, been to them for stag do's and Xmas nights. It's all a bit meh, and doesn't sit right.

Not a fan either, I know a few guys who went to one in Hamburg and bought the "girls" a glass of Champagne and weren't allowed to leave until they paid for the bottle, some €300. Total scam and they fell for it with the old glass of Champagne trick.

[matty_f]

Religion. I respect people's right to believe in whichever God they believe in, but I find the whole thing mental.

[J-C]

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Religion. I respect people's right to believe in whichever God they believe in, but I find the whole thing mental.

Yep same here, never understand the strong belief in an imaginary diety or god, I respect people's beliefs but just don't get it myself, I'm a good atheist.

[J-C]

I've never understood racism, we're all the same race, homosapians. No matter what colour we are or how we speak, strip off the skin and we're all the same.

[lapsedhibee]

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I've never understood racism, we're all the same race, homosapians. No matter what colour we are or how we speak, strip off the skin and we're all the same.

Not a wholly convincing argument, since we'd all be deid without skin!

[CropleyWasGod]

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I've never understood racism, we're all the same race, homosapians. No matter what colour we are or how we speak, strip off the skin and we're all the same.

It's easy to understand. People are suspicious of difference, of any kind. That's a primitive response in all of us.

It's how we deal with that response, however, that defines us.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Peevemor]

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I've never understood racism, we're all the same race, homosapians. No matter what colour we are or how we speak, strip off the skin and we're all the same.

Racism is as much about fear/suspicion of cultural differences as it is about skin colour.

[J-C]

All understandable answers, I just don't get it, I look at each person as a human and take it from there.

[Pete]

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Racism is as much about fear/suspicion of cultural differences as it is about skin colour.

I think they're two different things.

Racism can be debunked pretty easily if racism is the idea that one race is genetically superior to another or there are marked differences. Science can indeed prove that we're pretty much all the same and it's really only ancient stereotypes at play.

Cultural differences are more complicated and can't be resolved by things like common sense or science. Ones that are based on religious beliefs are immune to such scrutiny.

I could go on about the things I don't get when it comes to other cultures but maybe its not for this thread.

[Lemonade]

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Yep same here, never understand the strong belief in an imaginary diety or god, I respect people's beliefs but just don't get it myself, I'm a good atheist.

You agreed with the poster regarding respecting people's right to believe then you use terms like imaginary

[matty_f]

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You agreed with the poster regarding respecting people's right to believe then you use terms like imaginary

It has to be imaginary, though.

If you tell me about a cake you've made, I can believe you've made a cake but until I've seen it or touched it, I'm only imagining it even though I firmly and totally believe it's real.

[pollution]

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It has to be imaginary, though.

If you tell me about a cake you've made, I can believe you've made a cake but until I've seen it or touched it, I'm only imagining it even though I firmly and totally believe it's real.

There are no atheists in a fox hole.

[J-C]

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It has to be imaginary, though.

If you tell me about a cake you've made, I can believe you've made a cake but until I've seen it or touched it, I'm only imagining it even though I firmly and totally believe it's real.

Thanks Matty, if God does suddenly appear I'll hold my hand up and say I'm wrong, until then all religious beliefs are a personal thing and all deities are imaginary until such solid evidence is produced.

[heretoday]

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Religion. I respect people's right to believe in whichever God they believe in, but I find the whole thing mental.

I envy folk who can gain some comfort from religion in bad times. Whenever I try praying (every Saturday at 1500 hrs approx) I just embarrass myself.

[danhibees1875]

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I envy folk who can gain some comfort from religion in bad times. Whenever I try praying (every Saturday at 1500 hrs approx) I just embarrass myself.

I think there is a place for religion beyond the belief in all the classic stories or even in God.

It can, despite the unfortunate misinterpretation that often occurs, provide good guidelines on how to treat others better as well providing people with some sort "point" to life.

[J-C]

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I think there is a place for religion beyond the belief in all the classic stories or even in God.

It can, despite the unfortunate misinterpretation that often occurs, provide good guidelines on how to treat others better as well providing people with some sort "point" to life.

Is that not just bringing up your kids showing respect to others, I brought up 3 kids without a hint of religion and they're all normal good living respectful adults with good jobs, houses their own kids etc.

[danhibees1875]

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Is that not just bringing up your kids showing respect to others, I brought up 3 kids without a hint of religion and they're all normal good living respectful adults with good jobs, houses their own kids etc.

I'm not saying everyone needs it for that reason. Just that it can provide a healthy set of guidelines for people.

[matty_f]

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I'm not saying everyone needs it for that reason. Just that it can provide a healthy set of guidelines for people.

Hate gays and murder infidels... Great values

[Future17]

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It has to be imaginary, though.

If you tell me about a cake you've made, I can believe you've made a cake but until I've seen it or touched it, I'm only imagining it even though I firmly and totally believe it's real.

I don't necessarily disagree with your general point, but I think you're confusing the definition of "imaginary". It's not linked to "imagine" in the way you've suggested in your example.

[matty_f]

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I don't necessarily disagree with your general point, but I think you're confusing the definition of "imaginary". It's not linked to "imagine" in the way you've suggested in your example.

I respectfully disagree, and JC's response to my post suggests that I've linked correctly.

Considering how many variations and interpretations of Gods the are, the evidence points to a liberal use of imagination across the religions.

There is only anecdotal evidence of Jesus having existed, for instance, so ideas of what's he looked like and what he did were created from storytelling - to the best of my knowledge there is no archaeological evidence that Jesus existed. There is nothing more than storytelling to evidence God's existence, so He has to be imaginary.

An omnipotent being who is everywhere yet can't be seen, heard, touched, or smelled exists in the heads of those that believe - but whichever way you look at it, that being is imaginary - belief that He is real does not change the fact that He is still imaginary.

I'm trying to explain my point of view without being disrespectful to those that do believe, as each will have their own valid and probation reasons for doing so, and as it's virtually impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, they could well be right and I've an eternity of wishing is made better choices ahead of me so I'm not going to get all smug about it now!

[lapsedhibee]

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I respectfully disagree, and JC's response to my post suggests that I've linked correctly.

Considering how many variations and interpretations of Gods the are, the evidence points to a liberal use of imagination across the religions.

There is only anecdotal evidence of Jesus having existed, for instance, so ideas of what's he looked like and what he did were created from storytelling - to the best of my knowledge there is no archaeological evidence that Jesus existed. There is nothing more than storytelling to evidence God's existence, so He has to be imaginary.

An omnipotent being who is everywhere yet can't be seen, heard, touched, or smelled exists in the heads of those that believe - but whichever way you look at it, that being is imaginary - belief that He is real does not change the fact that He is still imaginary.

I'm trying to explain my point of view without being disrespectful to those that do believe, as each will have their own valid and probation reasons for doing so, and as it's virtually impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, they could well be right and I've an eternity of wishing is made better choices ahead of me so I'm not going to get all smug about it now!

There's another way in which a God might be valid, which doesn't involve archaeological evidence. More a logical thing than archaeological, ie something that has to be, logically, to make good sense of everything else. A bit like the square root of minus one (for which there is also no 'evidence', in the sense that you and no doubt Fife-Hibee crave). The square root of minus one is an imaginary number.

[matty_f]

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There's another way in which a God might be valid, which doesn't involve archaeological evidence. More a logical thing than archaeological, ie something that has to be, logically, to make good sense of everything else. A bit like the square root of minus one (for which there is also no 'evidence', in the sense that you and no doubt Fife-Hibee crave). The square root of minus one is an imaginary number.

That's an interesting point, though I don't think that God can be described as the 'has to be'. Maybe at the time of early religion, when our understanding of all that we understand now was significantly less - where you couldn't explain flooding, weather, the sun setting and rising etc through a scientific knowledge - then that might have been appropriate.

Imaginary numbers still hold true now because there is no scientific or viable alternative, whereas where Good might have been used to explain why the ground shook or a volcano erupted once upon a time, we can understand why they happen now.

What accepting that he's not everyone's cup of tea, Ricky Gervais explained it well - he said that if you took all we know now, and all the books and internet pages of science and discovery, and religion away and started again, the science books would be re-written more or less as they are now until better evidence is found. Religion wouldn't necessarily be.

[lapsedhibee]

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accepting that he's not everyone's cup of tea, Ricky Gervais explained it well - he said that if you took all we know now, and all the books and internet pages of science and discovery, and religion away and started again, the science books would be re-written more or less as they are now until better evidence is found. Religion wouldn't necessarily be.

That's an interesting idea, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Which is fine, since ideas are every bit as real as cups of tea, even though you can't weigh them, photograph them, etc etc.

[matty_f]

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That's an interesting idea, for which there is no evidence whatsoever. Which is fine, since ideas are every bit as real as cups of tea, even though you can't weigh them, photograph them, etc etc.

It's a theory more than an idea, and though it would be very difficult you could test it to prove it disprove it.

[Pretty Boy]

The Universe has been expanding and cooling for billions of years; everything was hotter and denser in the past, and if we extrapolate back arbitrarily far, we'd arrive at a point of infinite density. Theoretically, this was realized as early as the 1920s by cosmologists like Alexandr Friedmann and Georges Lemaître, with the latter calling this state the "primeval atom" from which everything emerged. When the leftover radiation glow predicted by this picture -- shifted into the microwave portion of the spectrum by the Universe's expansion -- was detected in the 1960s, the Big Bang was confirmed. Extrapolate back arbitrarily far, and you arrive at a singularity: where space and time as we know them emerged from.

Only, that picture isn't right. If the Universe's temperature (and hence, its energies) ever rose above a certain point, early on, the fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background would be larger than what we observe. The fact that they are only a few parts in 100,000 -- first measured in the early 1990s by COBE -- tells us that there must have been a state before the hot Big Bang that our hot, dense, matter-and-radiation-filled Universe emerged from. There was a prediction made as to what that state would be in the 1980s: cosmic inflation, that set up and gave rise to the Big Bang. The details of what the CMB's fluctuations would be were predicted, and observed to match in gory detail what we observed by COBE, WMAP (2000s) and Planck (2010s). Inflation came before the hot Big Bang. What came before inflation, and honestly, what came before the last 10^-32 seconds of inflation or so, is still a mystery.

Science still can't fully explain the formation of the universe. That isn't proof, or otherwise, for God obviously but it leaves a vacuum (pun intended).

On a different level I find that people often focus on the negatives with regards religion. I could point out that the Catholic church is the biggest non state provider of healthcare in the world for example but that's an irrelevant argument as far as those of us in the developed world are concerned. On a local level churches provide a supportive community for people, often at difficult or emotional times. There's a reason many people turn to the church after a birth, death, marriage etc. I'm sure the same can be said of Mosques, Synagogues, Temples and so on. Religions attract people from a broad church (another pun intended) and much like society in general there are liberals and conservatives, zealots and moderates and so on and so forth.

As recently as 2014 only 13% of Britons described themselves as 'convinced atheists' so whilst people may be turning away from traditional religions (the last 2 census confirm that) I think there is still an underlying belief in the spiritual or 'something'.

For me attending Mass is a quiet time, a time to reflect in which you can't just pick up a phone or turn on the TV and there's generally something to be taken from it. I'm aware that can be achieved in other ways as well. But further it challenges me. For years it was easy to say I was an atheist and it was easy to take a socially liberal stance (I still do in many areas) without thinking of any alternative argument. The truth is i don't know if God exists, the clue is in the word 'faith'. I'd probably describe myself as an agnostic Catholic; I don't view prayer as asking for what I want and expecting it to happen or making bargains with whoever may be listening; it's a chance to focus, a chance to process thought and also a chance to listen.