Hannah Cann tells us why she loves political correctness.
Do you have swine flu? No. Do you know anybody who does have swine flu? Probably not. So what's all the fuss about?
Can't afford ethical clothing but can afford a night out at Ziggy's? Jennifer Heyes discusses where students' priorities should really lie.
Three of The Yorker's blogs team have had a hard think about what general rules they live their lives by and written them down in the form of their own Personal Philosophies.
An agnostic is a person who believes that nothing can be known about the existence of God. And to me this has always been obvious. How can we know that God exists? We might have strong views one way or another, and I think about such views all the time – yes, agnostics do think about religion. Arguably they’ve thought about it more than anyone.
I was not encouraged to be religious from an early age, and neither was I encouraged not to be. But I’ve always taken an immense interest in religion and religious studies was one of my favourite subjects at school. My sister, having barely mentioned the idea, chose to be confirmed into the Anglican Church. I chose agnosticism. My parents, themselves fairly apathetic towards religion, are baffled by us both.
Agnosticism is not an apathetic stance. People who are apathetic on the subject of religion might say, "Well, I guess religion is a nice idea, but I haven’t really thought about it, so I don’t know if I have a faith or not." Whereas people who label themselves agnostics have simply had the courage to say, "I don’t know if God exists. No-one can know that. But I see many people with strong faith, and just because I personally don’t share it, that doesn’t make it less valid."
"Yes, that’s all very well," you might argue, "but you’re just sitting on the fence; you’re too cowardly to make up your mind." But I argue that agnosticism is the bravest stance that one can take in the religious debate. In a modern world plagued by doubts in both science and religion, and still wrestling with the immense problem of evil and suffering, to stand up and say, "the evidence doesn’t look promising, but ultimately I just don’t know," is surely a brave thing to do.
Many, not all, are driven to accept religion through fear – to them the alternative of living in a world without certainty, without the faith that there is something better to come, is simply too ghastly to contemplate. Similarly, others take refuge in science, with a capital ‘S’ – ‘Science’, they claim, has all the answers and if we don’t know them today we will do tomorrow.
In a modern world plagued by doubts in both science and religion, and still wrestling with the immense problem of evil and suffering, to stand up and say, "the evidence doesn’t look promising, but ultimately I just don’t know," is surely a brave thing to do.
But science doesn’t have all the answers: as philosopher David Hume argued, just because the sun rose yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, as far back as we can remember, makes it extremely likely that it will do the same tomorrow, but by no means certain.
I attended a talk earlier this term by the Reverend Lord Richard Harries. He began by stating that intolerance was arguably implicit in any serious world view, and while acknowledging the benefits of engaging in dialogue with people of other beliefs, he did not answer the question which was the title of his talk: "Can religions learn to be tolerant?" I think that religious individuals can be tolerant, and I have plenty of time for agnostic theists, but unfortunately I think that there will always be intolerant people in any society, whether religious or atheist. The reverend considered both religious and atheistic viewpoints, but not agnosticism, a serious world view that leaves most room for tolerance.
After this talk, a friend and confirmed atheist asked me whether I thought the tooth fairy might exist. I said no, I didn’t think so. So, he said, God doesn’t exist either – we have no more evidence than for the tooth fairy. Millions of people don’t believe in the tooth fairy, but there are millions of religious people in the world. I’m not saying that just because millions of people believe in something necessarily means that they are right (and the nature of their beliefs vary tremendously) but I am saying that we can’t just dismiss every religious faith outright, especially as some are so incredibly strong and even more have at least been seriously considered. If I’ve seriously considered something and so have you, but we’ve come to different conclusions, then we both must be prepared to discuss and defend our views. That’s tolerance. Bringing up the tooth fairy is funny, but irrelevant.
When people ask me about my religious views I tell them that I’m an agnostic. I’ll probably go on and waffle about the inherently flawed logic in arguments for the existence of God, or about the problem of evil, or about how incredibly fascinating I find Tibetan Buddhism. But they’ve probably shrugged their shoulders and walked away. After all, you can’t have a discussion with an agnostic, can you?
In a group debate somebody once asked me whether I held strong views about anything. Slightly taken aback and not much of a public speaker, my answer was probably incoherent. But I do believe in tolerance and I do think that agnosticism is itself a strong view - in my opinion, the strongest.
In '‘Why I’m not a Christian’', Bertrand Russell concludes:
"We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it."
This is what I try to do every day, and when I look fair and square at the world I see tremendous complexity. And I’m not afraid to admit, after spending much time in thought and discussion, that I just don’t know – I don’t have all the answers and neither do you.
comment deleted by the author Check out:
http://www.jesusandmo.net/
...for a topical chuckle.
I was very surprised to look at the wall at my grandparents' today and see Jesus looking as sad as always on his cross - and that even though it's his birthday today...
"Kings, 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. Yes, what a clever idea to take the Bible literally James, God seems to think that Pi is equal to 3..."
I agree with James' retort - i.e. that it's not a bad estimation. Had they said that the circumference was 40 then it would be a bit dodgier... but regardless, literally, it does suggest that Pi is 3. That's the point - you can't take each word to be 100% literally accurate.
And yes, James, I'd love to continue this conversation. Facebook me 
George, Dawkins is a completely brainless fool. ((Just to clarify at this point: I have always thought this. He is a bad scientist who happens to have been one of the leaders of the anti-religious argument and as such is heralded as a genius. His science is poor and his logic is poor but clever. I'm happy for people to look at anti-Christian works but PLEASE look at good ones!))
I completely agree that religion stirring people into suicide is foolish but it's not the fault of the God in question. See Jeremiah 7:31 - "They have built pagan shrines at Topheth, the garbage dump in the valley of Ben-Hinnom, and there they burn their sons and daughters in the fire. I have never commanded such a horrible deed; it never even crossed my mind to command such a thing!"
People can get religion wrong. People can assume, according to their own beliefs, that God is telling them something when it is actually Satan. Or, of course, they're making it up and psychologically are enticed to believe that it's true.
"The definition of the word faith is "unjustified belief" "
No it isn't. The definition of faith is "something that is believed especially with strong conviction" or "complete trust or confidence" depending on whether you use an American dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary. To someone who has faith, faith is not irrational.
The step of faith will always be where you believe something is true but haven't got conclusive evidence for it.
Historically, of course, we have found the dead sea scrolls (and others) dating back to long before Christ that have prophecies contained within pointing to him. Likewise there is plenty of evidence for his life, death and resurrection. It's not irrational - whether you would say it's the logical step or not. It has to work in this way: assume there isn't a God and the whole thing was fake. Assume there is a God and the whole thing makes sense.
It's how logic works. Basic assumptions must be made - and sometimes, such as this, it is that single basic assumption that leads to contrasting views. Though I would suggest that most people with faith would suggest they have further reasons for that faith and those that despise religion have their own reasons too. It's still worth looking at properly.
"The reason why most people believe in Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha or whatever, is just because they happened to be born in a specific geographical longitude and latitude, probably within a family that, consciously or subconsciously, indoctrinated them into a particular dogma." Not true. I find that the Jewish faith is filled with prophesies that Jesus Christ fulfilled and that to deny Christ is to deny your own religion in that case... and that Islam is fundamentally flawed. Those are MY reasons, not geography. Granted that in certain cases this is true, but not in all. Likewise I would technically be a member of the Church of England doctrine if it was geographical but I wouldn't consider myself that 'conservative' in belief. Again, alway willing to talk it through. Merry Christmas y'all
"George, Dawkins is a completely brainless fool. ((Just to clarify at this point: I have always thought this. He is a bad scientist who happens to have been one of the leaders of the anti-religious argument and as such is heralded as a genius. His science is poor and his logic is poor but clever. I'm happy for people to look at anti-Christian works but PLEASE look at good ones!))"
Dawkins isn't a poor scientist, and his logic certainly isn't poor. He does go about it in a rather brash/offensive manner though - but after years of the church I have little sympathy for any religion.
Jason, how can a religious person say an atheist/agnostic has POOR logic?!
You have broken the ultimate rule and assumed something you cannot prove and deduced a lot from it! It doesn't matter what you deduce, you made a false/unproveable assumption!
#44 a Muslim would consider the doctrine of the trinity flawed and impossible.
Geography and culture still define what religion you are, excepting a very small number of converts. (even an english ex-christian muslim convert has a lot of catching up to do in terms of learning arabic and going to Saudi Arabia to truly participate in the religion).
The split between orthodox/catholic is also a definate sign of geography determining ones religion. Eastern orthodox even has geography in the religion's name!
And there's no proof whatsoever that the resurrection happened. Only a few accounts from followers of Jesus. No investigation into possibilities of a hoax, or delusions, or even a totally different man 'appearing'. Or just lies. No Proof whatsoever. What happened to the body is also a sketchy area - surely flesh and other such earthly matters can't get to heaven. Otherwise whats the point of a soul??
As for Dawkins, his job is a professor of science for public understanding. Therefore his brash manner and less than academic style probably suits his role quite well. His arguments aren't new at all, but the God delusion is a useful text as it summarises Atheism's main scientific arguments against the existecce of God in a readable way. Hitchens' 'God is not great' provides the social criticisms in a similar way. Both good books for exploring the basics of atheism. Both have been criticised for not being academic or philosophical enough, but they've reached a mass audience, something atheism previously lacked given its lack of structure, hierarchy, organisations, evangelists etc... Yet like any text on religion, its important not to take in Dawkins words without questioning them.
If you want to read a really convincing anti-creationist book thats not indoctrinating in the slightest, the original is still the best. Darwin's origin of species.
#46: The witnesses to the resurrection gave their lives to tell people about it. If they were not telling the truth, would they have knowingly died for a lie when they could easily have kept quiet? From their accounts it is clear they were intelligent, sane, and honest people. They even included details of their own mistakes which made themselves look stupid (something you don't find in the testimony of a liar), in one case recording that Jesus called their leader "Satan".
If they were tricked, I'm curious how you think Jesus might have faked walking on water, and the resurrection of Lazarus after he had been dead in his tomb for 4 days.
In my humble opinion, the only rational conclusion is that they were credible witnesses who were speaking the truth.
James! Seriously!
"If they were not telling the truth, would they have knowingly died for a lie when they could easily have kept quiet?
Yes! Thousands die for their cause/belief/religion yearly and they're not forced to be true! Just because people could see their fallibility doesn't mean we should believe every word they say - especially when that word violates every scientific principle. Ridiculous!
Jesus didn't walk on water, and no-one was resurrected! How can you defend your position here?! It's so unbelievable!
And stop linking us to that stupid creation site, it's garbage.
#48: The thousands who die for their beliefs die for exactly that, what they believe to be true. My point was that they would not have died for something that they knew to be a lie. I.e. they were either telling the truth or were tricked and thought they were telling the truth. You have resorted to emotional mockery instead of answering the question of how Jesus tricked them into seeing him walk on water and raise Lazarus from the dead.
What?! I have no idea how that happened, nor do I care. It violates basic scientific laws and has never been seen again. All we have is a written account of it - and that is hardly empirical evidence! We also have written evidence of witches and dragons, did they exist?!
How old is the earth James?!
that creationontheweb site is bulls**t. Its as impartial as getting scientific evidence for xenu from a scientology site.
Yes, thousands of people die for their beliefs. People don't necessarily 'know' their beliefs are explicitly a lie, yet many do not question the religion they are brought up in.
I have a friend who believes God helped him pass his driving test because he prayed. Nothing to do with perhaps his own ability and the behaviour of other road users and the strictness of the examiner or conditions or stress or confidence etc...
He 'believes' that God made him pass. Not an explicit lie, but certainly not true in any sense of the word. There is the slimmest of possibilities that God stopped that child running across the road, or stopped a drunk-driver from tailgating...but if God helped my affluent friend over people with AIDS for example then i think you'd agree he's either got his priorities wrong or he's a pretty sick b*stard.
What im trying to say is that its not a case of truth or lies. People can believe all kinds of crap because they want to believe it, because it helps them, because they made money out of it, because it jumps to a favourable conclusion etc... Just because people believe stuff doesnt mean it's true #49!! Flat earth?? Racial supremacy & fascism?? Communism?? People have died for many different beliefs, none of which are associated with 'truth'. Your point is entirely invalid. Think about 9/11 and what the terrorists died for? Christian truth? I think not.
Emotional mockery (or mockery in general) is probably deserved for being so blind in one's faith. Jesus DID NOT walk on water. Even most serious theologians doubt the miracles (Read Bultmann' demythologised bible) because they are STORIES. Matter does NOT duplicate (bread and fish) because it is broken in half. Lazarus clearly was not raised from the dead. When did he die again? Who precisely wrote the account? Too many holes. THINK! Don't just jump to conclusions because they are convenient.
If God exists why have there been no miracles (and no extension of the bible) for 2000 years? Why hasnt God commanded a revision of the bible if he really does accept gay people and sex before marriage? Where are the modern day prophets? Have God's communicating abilities dried up?
Similarly how exactly are my sins related to the undeserved death of a man 2000 years ago? Just how am I 'saved' because somebody else suffered? Where's the logic there? I
ve never met this Jesus and he's never met me, therefore how can I be redeemed?
Not intended to be a rant as such, just a series of questions for people of all positions to answer. Sometimes it's nobler to admit not actually knowing the answer rather than blindly believing what one is told by elders, or leaders, or books.
#51: You have some interesting questions. Since you have asked I shall try to provide some answers, so please do not be blind to them or you will be guilty of operating in the blind faith that I am wrong and have no answers.
The bible makes it quite clear that the miracles happened and were not fictional or storytelling. That they don't normally happen is what makes them miracles. There aren't holes, go and read it for yourself (perhaps a more direct translation instead of a "demythologised" translation which no doubt changes the original meaning). How are such conclusions convenient for me? They are sensible conclusions from the bible, but they expose me to persecution and mockery as well. Surely the convenient position is your position where you fit in with popular society.
My dad used to have a motorbike. When he was young he was speeding along a road between two banks. A man started crossing the road so he slowed down, before a car shot across the road at the next junction where he would likely have been killed if the man had not crossed. But the man was nowhere to be seen, but couldn't have gone anywhere so quick with those banks on either side. I would not be here today if it wasn't for that man who I believe was an angel. Sure it isn't conclusive proof, but if you discard miracles off hand because they are impossible without divine intervention which you do not believe in, you are certain not to find any.
That God can accept gay people is because Jesus died for their sin as well. It doesn't make homosexuality any less disgusting to God, any more than murderers or rapists or me being saved makes their/my sins less disgusting to God.
The logic behind Jesus' death: Displeasing God is sin. The penalty for sin is physical and spiritual death (separation from god - hell). Adam+eve originally lived in a sinless (good) world but were tempted to sin by Satan and sinned. The world was cursed by God, and we are all born into sin and we all sin. We all deserve eternal separation from God. God loves us. God sent his son to earth as a human (Jesus) who lived a perfect sinless life. Jesus didn't deserve hell. Jesus died and was separated from God for 3 days. He accepted a penalty that couldn't be for his own crime, since he had committed none. As a result his death can pay the penalty for anybody who regrets their sin and accepts Jesus as their saviour. Such people have been made clean in God's eyes and are no longer separated from him. Being human they still sin, but the penalty has been paid, and having regretted their sins they do their best not to sin.
James, haven't you ever thought that instead of all these complicated/unproveable things happening that you're actually mistaken?
People can be made to believe anything and are completely fallible - just because you thought you saw something doesn't mean you did. The church has constructed a self-fulfilling prophecy where anything extraordinary that happens in your life you attribute to God, and anything bad is punishment! You can't lose?!?!
A more likely story (given the lack of evidence for anything you have said) is that you are being conned, harsh - but true.
Are we so arrogant/ignorant as to really believe that we encoutered a 'God' who has only ever appeared once in over as billion years.....it's far more likely is that the wool is being pulled over your eyes. We have already shown this by the latitude/longitude argument.
Richard Feynman once told a story (along these lines) where he was dreaming that his Nan was really ill and needed help, and then the phone woke him up. He picked it up and guess who it was?! Not his Nan.
He says for one time this happens and it is your Nan needing help (out of billions of people each night) we just need to find the thousands whom it didn't happen to and disprove the one idiot (who got a call) who claims it was a miracle from God.
Not to be mean, but just because you cannot explain the motorbike thing, doesn't mean it was an angel! People are eqaully unlucky throughout life....sounds like you could do with learning some basic probability theory and reading about coincidences.
And how can you be sure you have interpreted Gods word correctly? Some of your arguments (given their huge improbability/falseness) require some pretty precise interpretation from ambiguous material.
This is turning into quite a useful lesson isn't it? We have learn't how old the earth is, that creationist websites are rubbish, that miracles (in your sense) don't happen. What next? Disproving Santa - don't be ridiculous!
RAGE! I spent 75 minutes writing a reply and the flipping login timed out. Any chance an admin could find what I sent or is that impossible?
I used to be top-of-the-line with technology and now I feel I'm lagging somewhat 
Erm, if you want me to answer in detail about any specific part of that, feel free. Otherwise I'm just going to sit here and cry at my wasted time
#52 some interesting points, yet again there's no solid evidence for the bible's truth.
If the bible makes it clear that jesus walked on water, then the Quran makes it equally as clear that an illiterate man received the infallable word of god via dictation in saudi arabia.
There is no solid evidence for miracles. The bible is a STORY. It is full of allegory, parables and other metaphorical statements. How can you dismiss the Quran yet not the bible? How can you dismiss scientology's core texts yet not the bible? Scientology is full of miracles such as thetan souls inhabiting human bodies. Quite extraordinary! How is one account of a miracle more true than another if both have no evidence. If Jesus really did feed 5,000 people with a bit of bread and 2 fish then surely there would be 5,000 seperate accounts of this Godly act. Not one account and some suspicious plagiarism from the other gospel writers.
#52, the motorcycle story is fairly typical of a modern ' miracle' story, and it proves one of two things.
A) God is a sick individual who is quite happy to intervene in the lives of a few westerners yet refuses to act to stop AIDS or massacres/ . Does God not give a damn about Zimbabweans? Why sit back and let the Rwanda genocide happen if God has the power to intervene. How many other motor accidents happen because of somebody elses mistakes? The people in the M1 coach crash didn't deserve to die, why didn't an 'angel' walk across the road then? Princess Diana was a christian, why didn't an 'angel' stop that crash?
or B) there is another explanation. Such as motorbikes have brakes. Junctions have give way markings to ensure traffic slows down. Riders have reactions etc... I suppose you'd thank God if you won the lottery too?
It's a classic paradox.God is all-knowing and all-powerful and all-merciful. Yet the Rwanda genocide happened. And don't mention free will. Nobody CHOSE to die in the genocide.
Equating homosexuality to murder is just sick. I'm not going to offer any rebuttal to that point.
On the sinner point, answer me this.
Who is anyone else to tell me that I am a cursed sinner? Is the entirity of my life totally pointless because a mythological person in a mythological garden ate a mythological apple tempted by a mythological snake?
I am in control of my own 'sins', and obviously my view of a sin is different to 'Gods'.
But if i have sinned and jesus paid my penalty, then this is also pretty sickening. Blaming someone else and making them suffer for my wrongs is just immoral. It's a fairly twisted concept of desert.
So God 'cursed' the world, and to avoid the curse you have to do has he says. Otherwise you burn in hell.
Do as I say, or suffer. Sounds like terrorism to me.
I can't prove the bible is truer than the quran. Or scientology. So i'm not going to try and explain away things i do not know by quoting an ancient book. I'll just admit i'm only human and therefore cannot know the answers to all of the world's mysteries.
Somehow I find one crazy nutter more scary that I find all these sane people reassuring...
If God is all powerful then he is to blame for the 33,000 children who die from starvation every day. He is to blame for the millions of babies being born with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. He is to blame for the 300,000 people who died 4 years ago in South Eastern Asia by the (his?) tsunami.
You believe that an angel(!!) saved your dad, but over the last few days no angel saved the Palestinian children from Israeli missiles. Over the last few years, no angel saved millions of people in Kongo and Rwanda from horrific deaths and sickening torture. And over the last few millenia, no angel prevented wars, natural disasters and untold, undeserved misery for all of humanity.
If your God is all powerful, he somehow failed to give us all even the right to choose over our lives. In short, if your God even exists, then he is pretty f****g sick and he most definitely does not deserve praise.
Moving on, I think we should all refuse to participate in debates with creationists. Doing so gives them the oxygen of respectability they crave for.
Creationists don't mind being beaten in an argument; what matters to them is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public.
What's happening here is that we are all wasting our time trying to reason with an ultra-religious nutcase who thinks that the earth is 6000 years old, the theory of evolution is a conspiracy, homosexuals are disgusting sinners and that humanity deserves to suffer because a prehistoric woman ATE A FRIGGING APPLE FROM A FORBIDDEN TREE AFTER BEING TEMPTED BY A SATANIC SNAKE.
Do we seriously expect this "discussion" to result in anything more than a series of parallel monologues?
James, if your mind is not completely addled yet, stop filling it with this bollocks, stop trying to refute basic scientific knowledge with claptrap "evidence" and stop trying to convince us that it's all a conspiracy and we are all just crazy. Chances are that you are.
So, by all means, put an end to this farce and try to get a life.
comment deleted by the author Good points, guys, and I would just answer with a few points. Firstly, this life is not that important. The lives we live are affected by millions of things and it is what we do with the situation that defines our lives, not what the situation itself is. The guys that jump on grenades to save their friends' lives are heroic - but if they weren't in that horrible situation, it couldn't be shown. There is no way of us knowing what the purposes of our lives are or what the bigger picture is. If you have beliefs, you have to act by them - and if your belief is that you should live a good life but that there is no God then do the best you can and kudos for it.
There is no way of us knowing what the mind of God is - you have to remember that our life is pretty short compared to eternity and that therefore being napalmed isn't that bad a price for eternal bliss. I'd still rather avoid it though and I acknowledge that it's often hard to see where God could be in the darkness of this world, even for strong Christians.
If the bible is true, the Qu'ran is not. It's up to each individual as to which they believe to be true and you have to search for evidence for that. There are indeed significantly fewer than 5,000 accounts for the feeding of the 5,000 and, honestly, I believe the events occured but that the baskets went around and that people who had extra food with them put the food in the baskets to help those with less than them... and that the miracle was that people were giving more than they got so that 12 massive baskets was left over despite the fact that many people there hadn't had any food with them. But that's my take on the story and remembering that the authors are simply humans basing their writing on the first-hand accounts of many people means that they can get details wrong or that the way they phrase things could be taken in different ways.
As for the creation story, it seems obvious to me that if you take things as being metaphorical, a snake doesn't have no legs because of it having Satan in it thousands of years ago. For a start, the garden of Eden would have had a couple of animals of each species and therefore it would be only one species of snake that has no legs.. very Aesop.
And, of course, it's not an apple. Westerners have warped that and indeed by the same logic many of the stories of Genesis could have been changed slightly by the time they were recorded. It's inevitable, really.
Likewise there is no real need for angels - some guy could have got lost and was wandering across the road, then saw the motorbike and jumped into a ditch in fright or it could have been shadows looking like a man. And, of course, it's likely that either the motorbike or the car would have stopped at the junction so the 'angel' might not have necessarily saved the life anyway. I would say that God acts, usually, in the easiest way possible and so would have simply given the motorcyclist the sudden urge to stop and look both ways properly. HOWEVER he could also have sent an angel for this moment, so that someone reading this thinks "you know what, I remember something similar.. was that an angel?" and then looks a lot of things up and decides to become a Christian and is saved, or whatever.
To reiterate, we can't know the fundamentals of the universe. The more science 'knows', the more it gets wrong and the more it fails to understand: superstring theory is getting more ridiculous by the second and the other alternative ideas aren't much better. If the Higgs' particle isn't real, the way we think about the universe is wrong. Etc. etc... don't discount God just because you can't see his supernatural logic 
Jason, thank you for reassuring me God doesn't exist.
Your own individual assertion about how God acts is mirrored by millions of others who equally believe they know Gods word.
By definition, you can't all be right, so you're all deluded (deluded not just wrong as you are basing this delusion on zero evidence).
If you cannot see the con, then that's your loss.
Our views are absolutely diammetrically opposed and as such this debate is futile.
Agnostic is the only sensible viewpoint, everything else is speculation and fantasy.
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