All-Purpose Religion Thread

[Rugeley Villa]

4 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Thought so. My daughter was talking yesterday about possibly sending our granddaughter to Rainbows/Brownies/Guides when she's a bit older. I queried the religious aspect, and she said she thought they'd dropped all that stuff. This may change her mind, thank you. 

When I picked him up at the end, I caught the last 5 minutes, and they were preying at the end. The people that do it come across as religious if I'm being honest. 

[mjmooney]

[chrisp65]

My kids did the whole dib dib dib thing every Thursday evening for years. I vaguely remember there was also something about Queen, country and flag too.

But neither of the kids appears too damaged by the experience. 

I guess we could always start our own completely non-religious, non-royalist, non-flag voluntary group to give kids something to do and somewhere to go.

Volunteers and venues for this sort of thing are plentiful.

[mjmooney]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

My kids did the whole dib dib dib thing every Thursday evening for years. I vaguely remember there was also something about Queen, country and flag too.

But neither of the kids appears too damaged by the experience. 

I guess we could always start our own completely non-religious, non-royalist, non-flag voluntary group to give kids something to do and somewhere to go.

Volunteers and venues for this sort of thing are plentiful.

Nearest thing is probably the Woodcraft Folk, but that merely substitutes lefty tree-hugging yoghurt knitting ( @tonyh29) for the God and Queen stuff. 

[snowychap]

49 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Volunteers and venues for this sort of thing are plentiful.

Are you saying that long established religious organizations (edit: or at least those with a religious bent) have acquired a disproportionate amount of property over time and still have a willing army of disciples looking to indoctrinate?

Edited April 26, 2018 by snowychap

[Rugeley Villa]

My son came home the other day. He'd made a St. George's flag. That surprised me a bit, because I didn't think it got celebrated much on schools. 

[lapal_fan]

4 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

My son came home the other day. He'd made a St. George's flag. That surprised me a bit, because I didn't think it got celebrated much on schools. 

I remember doing St Georges flags and stuff for St George's day at school. 

We had a bloke in to do wicked tattoo's on peoples calf's and everything. 

We learned how to drink too much, too quickly, become needlessly aggressive in situations that didn't call for it. 

Talk loudly to foreigners to help them understand what we were saying.

All sorts. 

[Wainy316]

Still remember it now...

 

I promise, that I will do my best,

To do my duty, to God and to the Queen,

To help other people,

And to keep the cub scout law.

[lapal_fan]

37 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Still remember it now...

 

I promise, that I will do my best,

To do my duty, to God and to the Queen,

To help other people,

And to keep the cub scout law.

That's weird, you didn't have the line

"To mention what we do to Mr Peters to our parents and guardians"? 

[chrisp65]

7 hours ago, snowychap said:

Are you saying that long established religious organizations (edit: or at least those with a religious bent) have acquired a disproportionate amount of property over time and still have a willing army of disciples looking to indoctrinate?

I do wonder (no, really), if living in a relatively modern town gives me a different perspective.

This town sort of sprang up 'overnight' from nothing more than a few hundred people to 40,000 people about 130 years ago. So there aren't these CofE and RC cathedrals strewn around the place at strategic junctions. Generally, people clubbed together and bought mail order tin churches and community halls and wedged them in to the triangles of land left over at the end of streets. Over the years, these have been replaced with other prefabs and modest self builds.

The local scout hut looks like an over sized garage extension. The local Brownies and Beavers place is a bungalow.

Clearly others live in towns where established religion has had a good few centuries to bag the key pieces of land and knock up something in granite. This town was built to service a new dock, so its mostly terraced streets and boozers. The only thing that got knocked up was Janet.

But to be honest, even if you are as keen to be distressed by religion as some here are, couldn't you just say the words and, y'know, not really mean it? Just to take advantage of the BBQ events and bring n buy sales and cookies. I've been to a few business networking things where there's been a stand up and toast to the queen thing. I've joined in, but I didn't actually become a subservient little royalist.

 

[mjmooney]

8 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I do wonder (no, really), if living in a relatively modern town gives me a different perspective.

This town sort of sprang up 'overnight' from nothing more than a few hundred people to 40,000 people about 130 years ago. So there aren't these CofE and RC cathedrals strewn around the place at strategic junctions. Generally, people clubbed together and bought mail order tin churches and community halls and wedged them in to the triangles of land left over at the end of streets. Over the years, these have been replaced with other prefabs and modest self builds.

The local scout hut looks like an over sized garage extension. The local Brownies and Beavers place is a bungalow.

Clearly others live in towns where established religion has had a good few centuries to bag the key pieces of land and knock up something in granite. This town was built to service a new dock, so its mostly terraced streets and boozers. The only thing that got knocked up was Janet.

But to be honest, even if you are as keen to be distressed by religion as some here are, couldn't you just say the words and, y'know, not really mean it? Just to take advantage of the BBQ events and bring n buy sales and cookies. I've been to a few business networking things where there's been a stand up and toast to the queen thing. I've joined in, but I didn't actually become a subservient little royalist.

 

As an adult, yes. But I detest religious indoctrination of children. 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

As an adult, yes. But I detest religious indoctrination of children. 

Actually whilst I agree, I’m just as likely as an adult to tell them straight out what a load of bollocks they’re talking

[chrisp65]

Just now, mjmooney said:

As an adult, yes. But I detest religious indoctrination of children. 

I'm not inclined to believe the Brownies indoctrinate children with religion. Certainly not to an extent where a fairly competent parent couldn't impose their beliefs more strongly than the one hour a week that brown owl gets.

[snowychap]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

But to be honest, even if you are as keen to be distressed by religion as some here are, couldn't you just say the words and, y'know, not really mean it?

No, absolutely not. Same goes for the national anthem or a toast to the queen or pledging allegiance.

Perhaps people ought to put more thought in to the mantras, toasts, pledges that they repeat.

[chrisp65]

I'm going to have to disappear for a couple of hours - football stuff to attend to!

 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

I'm not inclined to believe the Brownies indoctrinate children with religion. Certainly not to an extent where a fairly competent parent couldn't impose their beliefs more strongly than the one hour a week that brown owl gets.

That is precisely how all this nonsense gets its claws into you. When kids grow up thinking believing in god is normal, it’s hard for them to question it later in life as they’ve always accepted it to be true.

[snowychap]

7 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I'm not inclined to believe the Brownies indoctrinate children with religion. Certainly not to an extent where a fairly competent parent couldn't impose their beliefs more strongly than the one hour a week that brown owl gets.

I'm not sure that anyone (in opposition to the religious aspect of Beavers, Brownies or whatever group) is suggesting imposing beliefs on children. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Edited April 26, 2018 by snowychap

[chrisp65]

37 minutes ago, bickster said:

That is precisely how all this nonsense gets its claws into you. When kids grow up thinking believing in god is normal, it’s hard for them to question it later in life as they’ve always accepted it to be true.

sorry, but that's over dramatic bollocks

yes, if you leave your kid to culturally and morally fend for themselves then they can fall in with pick pockets or druggies or the jehova's witnesses

if you do genuinely think that brownies can get children to turn to religion against the guidance of half decent parents, well, I really don't know what to say, we're all ultimately doomed to follow the pope or ronnie hubbard

but reality doesn't appear to bear this out

I mean, my kids think some of their friends being muslims is 'normal', but I don't think they're going to convert any time soon. 

I guess I should tell them not to be friends as these kids are 'not normal'.

 

[A'Villan]

The way I see it is people are as indoctrinated by science as they are by religion.

In the case of scientific reductionism especially. The idea that there can be a concrete answer for every question is, to me, preposterous. Done by virtue, science should raise more questions than it answers.

 

[mjmooney]

47 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

The way I see it is people are as indoctrinated by science as they are by religion.

In the case of scientific reductionism especially. The idea that there can be a concrete answer for every question is, to me, preposterous. Done by virtue, science should raise more questions than it answers.

Indoctrinated by science? No. The 'more questions than answers' thing is at the very core of science (particularly in quantum theory). The point is that - while intuition is a valuable tool - it must be backed up with quantifiable evidence. Religion blindly disregards this, and goes solely by intuition mixed up with myth and legend. The minute you try and justify it, it falls apart. Wishful thinking at best, evil brainwashing at worst.