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I would only add that for me, faith is knowing that I am in safe hands, and hope is knowing that my faith is not in vain. -cliff

Now you're sounding like Commander Data! :-) If these things were genetic adaptations then everyone would be the same, but we're not. And beauty is not in the appearance, it goes deeper than that. But I'm sure you know that really. We're not like Data, that's the whole point. Truly living is...

Thanks Shawn. I'll try that in future. -cliff

This worries me too. I am reliably informed the Quran does not mandate full face cover, but if there are some women, even if there are only 30, who feel that showing their face would offend their sense of modesty, then it would be wrong to make them do so. We wouldn't like it if all men were...

OK Amergin. What about some of the other things you believe in. Where do things like love, beauty, kindness, generosity, mercy fit in to your science? Because these things are what faith is all about. Yes people have often got it terribly terribly wrong, even scientists and atheists have. All...

Hi Brian, just paying a quick visit after a prolonged absence. I notice the irritating time-out is still there, but now instead of prompting you to re-enter your username and password, it now insists you refresh the page, so unless you remember to copy it to the clipboard first you lose your...

First a quick note on mythology. Mythology is our way of passing down through the generations the deep wisdom of life. Myths encapsulate more "truth" than a million of these ephemeral "facts" with which we litter our heads, and which bear little relevance of our real lives. Second, the...

Nice Cup Of Tea - that sounds good. Do you see the violence in the previous post? What does that tell you?

Hi Jo I've just been catching up on this thread and can't fault anything that people have said. No religion is perfect, don't feel you have to squeeze into something that doesn't fit. You've already made a good start, now think with your heart. What really is important to you? What lights your...

Do we think Dawkins is a fundamentalist? I think there is a good case for saying so. He has admitted that he does not need to study religion to dismiss it. That sounds like fundamentalism to me.

Pull Sarah Palin?!!:eek: I won't sleep tonight.

CZ I do believe you're playing games with me :) You know the difference between technology and science, the difference between how to do something and what makes it work. Newtonian physics for example was all about e.g. why an object falls, why does it fall the way it does. It was based on...

I was at least trying not to succumb to the old science v religion debate. My point being to remark that our science is a cultural artifact. That doesn't make it useless within its context. On the contrary, it serves us well. But to answer the second point, it all depends on what you mean by...

Juantoo3 has understood this perfectly. It's possibly a subtle point but an important one. What we know as science is a facet of the Graeco-Roman-derived urban civilisation which we take for granted, because we live in it. It serves a purpose within this civilisation. Without the civilisation...

Hmm. Have I got this right? You'd be asking the primitive me to believe in things I can't see for which there is no visible proof and which is counter-intuitive, because someone who claims to know everything says so. And you say this is called science? :rolleyes: What I was trying to say was...

Wil, Part of me agrees with you wholeheartedly. Another part is thinking - maybe there is no clear division between God and creation. If there is something of God in each of us, then we are all creators of the world, moment by moment. Maybe we can dream some things into existence. Maybe we can...

I think science has left empirical observation a long way behind. We had Schroedinger's cat, multiple universes, 11 dimensions, particles that go back in time - I lose track. It's all speculation now, and has been for some time. But that's OK. What's often overlooked is how much what we know as...

I would not use a screwdriver to bake a cake. Neither would I use a Freudian model of the mind to describe prayer. VC

Re: Faith as an emotionally powerful fantasy = visual mind-pictures which touch a ... In what way does this idea of fantasy differ from ideology. We see particularly in politics, decisions being made not by a careful weighing up of the facts but from the requirements of an ideology. The Reagan...

Sure, I know that. But I'm still human. You know the line from "Sit down next to me": If I hadn't known such riches I could live with being poor Yeah good times come, good times go, but it's nice while it lasts and dull when it's gone. Then you start to blame yourself - What did I do wrong...