Faith schools

[dylanisabaddog 4,949]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68731366

Does this open the door to challenge all faith based schools? I do hope so. More than 50% of the population of England is now atheist and our view is finally being acknowledged. 

We've kicked the door wide open. Lets stop this nonsense once and for all. 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

I must admit I see two sides to this - 

1. It is defined as secular school so why should there be prayer meetings? There are lot of other heavy handed rules at the school too! It can be a school rule 'No Religion'! Anyway - are children old enough to be able anyway to resist peer or family pressure not to be indoctrinated ? -  but isn't that what all all the faith schools do anyway?

2. But - Assuming it's informal and not pressured, its difficult to see the harm with a prayer meeting for those that really want to attend for any religion. Perhaps we can have a witches covern in the grounds too! Yes a slippery slope.

However - What I'm against as in my youth was the enforced (or expected) RI and school assembles (hymns, prayers) for anybody. We all learnt to doze off - and in the words off Dawkin's - got fully vaccinated against it. None of this 'spiritual' crap

Religion in my book is a source of much of world problems and used mostly to divide peoples - Catholics, Protestants let alone other faiths.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68731366

Does this open the door to challenge all faith based schools? I do hope so. More than 50% of the population of England is now atheist and our view is finally being acknowledged. 

We've kicked the door wide open. Lets stop this nonsense once and for all. 

No it doesn't. They're basically operating an atheistic school according to your preference, which is a form of faith in its own right.

All that has happened is that it's established that an atheistic faith school is also permissible.

Edited April 16 by littleyellowbirdie

[ricardo 7,395]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

No it doesn't. They're basically operating an atheistic school according to your preference, which is a form of faith in its own right.

 

Don't  be silly, atheism is no more a faith than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

[horsefly 4,310]

1 hour ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

No it doesn't. They're basically operating an atheistic school according to your preference, which is a form of faith in its own right.

All that has happened is that it's established that an atheistic faith school is also permissible.

I'm afraid that's ill-conceived. Religions are fundamentally defined as belief sets based upon articles of faith completely independent of empirical evidence or the strictures of reason. The "leap of faith" that every religious believer has to take is resistant to any kind of evidence of the senses, or exercise of reason. Atheism is perhaps best defined as the view that empirical evidence is essential to justify ANY belief, so rejects the "leap of faith" as a legitimate source of knowledge. It is not the view that we can know for certain God doesn't exist, it is the view that there is absolutely no empirical evidence to show that she does. If God were to turn up and empirically prove her existence then every atheist would become a believer. Thus atheism has NO articles of faith, indeed it denies any role for faith in our epistemological grasp of the world and our place in it. Ergo Atheism is NOT a faith.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

46 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Don't  be silly, atheism is no more a faith than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Atheism is a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity in spite of no way of verifying the statement. That's why I think there's a degree of faith to it; it's impossible to verify.

Simulation theory raises massive questions about the nature of the universe. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

Edited April 16 by littleyellowbirdie

[cambridgeshire canary 6,755]

13 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Atheism is a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity in spite of no way of verifying the statement. That's why I think there's a degree of faith to it.

Agnosticism makes more sense, rationally speaking.

I may have been born into a methodist family, had a baptism as a baby and spent quite a long time as a kid at Sunday school but honestly as an adult i'm much more agnostic.

 

I think its rather pompous to think we either can or can't know for certain how the universe and reality works. Honestly feel we probably can't understand with our limited monkey brains and that the universe itself is far more complicated and nonsensical than anything we can ever hope to understand

Edited April 16 by cambridgeshire canary

[horsefly 4,310]

13 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Atheism is a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity in spite of no way of verifying the statement. That's why I think there's a degree of faith to it; it's impossible to verify.

Nope! (See above) You are conflating two connected but different things; "belief" and "knowledge". Atheists believe that God doesn't exist because there is no empirical evidence that points to the contrary. It is only those seeking to discredit atheism that make the further claim that atheists believe they can prove God doesn't exist. The history of epistemology (theory of knowledge) is as old as philosophy itself, and concerns the fundamental question of when a belief can be considered to constitute certain knowledge (I'm sure you are aware of Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum" for example). Atheists will differ to the degree of certainty with which they believe that God doesn't exist, but none (on pain of contradicting their very own criteria of empirical evidence) will claim to know with absolute certainty that God doesn't exist. I can't prove there are not thousands of invisible homunculi inside my brain responsible for all my thoughts, but I have absolutely no evidence for believing that there are. Likewise the Atheist believes there is no evidence for believing that an invisible omniscient deity is responsible for the natural phenomena we encounter in experience. The power of the atheist position lies in the fact that human history has involved a long process of debunking religious claims through a process of empirically verifiable (scientific) evidence. An earthquake, once "explained" as the wrath of God, is now understood as an effect of natural geophysical phenomena. 

 

Edited April 17 by horsefly

[TheGunnShow 5,956]

2 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

I may have been born into a methodist family, had a baptism as a baby and spent quite a long time as a kid at Sunday school but honestly as an adult i'm much more agnostic.

 

I think its rather pompous to think we either can or can't know for certain how the universe and reality works. Honestly feel we probably can't understand with our limited monkey brains and that the universe itself is far more complicated and nonsensical than anything we can ever hope to understand

Which is exactly why the notion of a God shouldn't be entertained without definitive proof, otherwise all you get is a "God of the gaps". Can't explain a phenomenon - just say a "God" did it. And there's that hoary old strawman of "atheists believe that the world started from nothing" when an honest representation would be "we don't know exactly how the world started", which is anything but "nothing". As for the prayer ban, if it applies to all religions then I really do not see an issue with it at all - if it means so much to that kid they can always do it in break time.

There was a quote in Sophie's World, which I think was attributed to Immanuel Kant but this might be incorrect, which roughly said "even if the world were only the size of an orange, we would not be smart enough to understand it in its entirety".

Like you, I should have ended up religious but ultimately I vehemently rejected it. Hitchens's Razor is an excellent mental tool for ensuring clear thought in such matters.

[Scrivvy 18]

3 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Simulation theory raises massive questions about the nature of the universe. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

That was an interesting read. I'd heard of the theory before, but never really gave it much attention.

Not sure I agree with the assertion the article makes that the theory is now confirmed, but it's food for thought.

[cambridgeshire canary 6,755]

4 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Atheism is a positive belief in the non-existence of any deity in spite of no way of verifying the statement. That's why I think there's a degree of faith to it; it's impossible to verify.

Simulation theory raises massive questions about the nature of the universe. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-we-live-in-a-simulation/

 

44 minutes ago, Scrivvy said:

That was an interesting read. I'd heard of the theory before, but never really gave it much attention.

Not sure I agree with the assertion the article makes that the theory is now confirmed, but it's food for thought.

"Article posted April 1st"

 

Interesting

[Scrivvy 18]

8 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

 

"Article posted April 1st"

 

Interesting

Ah well, being caught like that comes with age I guess. On the other hand, the article still makes some good points and I'm a confirmed advocate of the theory (until next week) 

I believe in everything and nothing, or somewhere in between. Depends on weather, day of the week - anything except firm unequivocal evidence.

[dylanisabaddog 4,949]

15 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

No it doesn't. They're basically operating an atheistic school according to your preference, which is a form of faith in its own right.

All that has happened is that it's established that an atheistic faith school is also permissible.

Atheism is not a form of faith. 

[Worthy Nigelton 1,058]

9 hours ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Atheism is not a form of faith. 

Yeah. LYB's point makes no sense to me whatsoever. You can't have faith in not having faith.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

3 hours ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

Yeah. LYB's point makes no sense to me whatsoever. You can't have faith in not having faith.

It's not complicated. Atheism definitively rules out anything if we can't comprehend it.

We don't understand our own consciousness, but there's some really interesting thinking out there on the subject as to how the lumps of meat that are our bodies are the seat of an awareness operating at a quantum level. Literally we look at things and it changes the behaviour of what we're looking at. It's bonkers. It's absolutely wondrous. Have a read up on the work of sir Roger Penrose (nobel Laureate in Physics), and Stephen Hameroff regarding quantum state reductions in microtubules in the brain, which they postulate is actually where consciousness happens. When we're unconscious under anaesthetic, the functions in these parts of the brain are the bits that are completely shut down.If you've ever been under anaesthetic you'll know you're completely unaware and it's like no time has passed when you come about.

And like that article said, which although it was a little tongue in cheek suggesting simulation theory is confirmed, all the arguments in it regarding c being fitting as an artifact of the universe's processing limits, which totally makes sense since it's fixed relative to the frame of reference of the observer and can then be viewed as something kind of analogous to the maximum frame rate in a computer game.

To be honest, atheists who can look at that and say 'nah, I'm positive there's absoutely nothing going on beyond what's in the realm of our perception' display a degree of arrogance, dullness, materialism, lack of curiosity and lack of imagination that astounds me.

In the early 20th century, there was a view that physics was done and there was nothing more to learn. Then Einstein came along and turned everything upside down with whole new frontiers of understanding to explore. Now we know a lot more and are also aware of vast areas where we have a lot to learn.

Personally I'll stick to the view on it I've had the last 20 or so years: I'll find out when I'm dead, unless the atheists are actually correct, in which case I won't. And if people want to believe with a conviction so close to religious that they practically become missionaries preaching for a futile campaign to try and suppress expressions of faith and that there's nothing more to know or even be interested in, then live and let live, but not for me thanks.

Edited April 17 by littleyellowbirdie

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

13 hours ago, Scrivvy said:

Ah well, being caught like that comes with age I guess. On the other hand, the article still makes some good points and I'm a confirmed advocate of the theory (until next week) 

I believe in everything and nothing, or somewhere in between. Depends on weather, day of the week - anything except firm unequivocal evidence.

That particular article was posted on April 1st, and the 'confirmed' was the April fools joke, but the thinking is genuine; the scientific community genuinely believes it's about a 50/50 chance that what we experience actually is a simulation.

This from Scientific American on the subject, but not on April 1st. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

7 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

That particular article was posted on April 1st, and the 'confirmed' was the April fools joke, but the thinking is genuine; the scientific community genuinely believes it's about a 50/50 chance that what we experience actually is a simulation.

This from Scientific American on the subject, but not on April 1st. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/

Even if true I'm not sure it means anything (and their arguments vs c and consciousness are surely very flawed). It's just another God version ... and who created / simulated it.... solves nothing.

We live in a logical world which it seems is ultimately based on mathematics and the laws of physics. Quantum mechanics and mathematical cosmology theories may seem spooky to us but that's only because of our limited human senses and imagination. 

 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

I'm sitting on a chair. It's a very fine wooden chair with carved legs and arm rests.  Now I know nothing about the creator of this chair and looking at the chair there are very few clues about the creator of this fine piece of furniture, but I have a very deep faith that there was a creator because I can see the chair, sit in it and know that nothing exists that hasn't been created from other things. 

So my faith for a creator of everything comes from the evidence of a universe full of things that are created, were created and will be created.  The Bible talks about the world beginning with light and science is beginning to understand that the universe did begin with light. 

As a species we have arrived on the scene a few thousand years ago in a universe that has been around for billions of years, so it hardly surprising we don't know very much. Don't be impatient lads. 

The natural question is if a creator created everything, who created the creator? The answer is sadly we may never know.  We can experience the creation to know there must be a creator but we can't experience the creator to know what the creator is. 

Perhaps we will find out after we die. Or if you have been lucky enough to experience the divine you may have experienced something of the creator already. 

[Aggy 757]

I mean there are actual philosophers and scholars who can’t agree on a definition of atheism so probably not one to get too worked up about on here!

The initial point LYB was trying to make though seems to be correct - the ruling has created no legal precedent to get rid of faith schools or stop faith schools from forcing children to pray in assembly. It has merely established that if a school wants to be ‘secular’ and ban all forms of religion and praying, it can. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

27 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Even if true I'm not sure it means anything (and their arguments vs c and consciousness are surely very flawed). It's just another God version ... and who created / simulated it.... solves nothing.

We live in a logical world which it seems is ultimately based on mathematics and the laws of physics. Quantum mechanics and mathematical cosmology theories may seem spooky to us but that's only because of our limited human senses and imagination. 

 

Sir Roger Penrose. Mathematician with a nobel laureate in physics, collaborated with Stephen Hawking, IQ in excess of 180. All I would say is his theory is that consciousness itself is non-computational. He's an agnostic.

 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

32 minutes ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

Sir Roger Penrose. Mathematician with a nobel laureate in physics, collaborated with Stephen Hawking, IQ in excess of 180. All I would say is his theory is that consciousness itself is non-computational. He's an agnostic.

 

I read his book twenty years ago.

More recently we are getting a much better more grounded idea of what consciousness actually is .. and that its emergent as form of 'prediction' machine. In sense its our internal model of the world which we perceive as us.

Try 'Being You'.. Anil Seth.

He's far nearer the truth than Penrose.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,562]

30 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

I read his book twenty years ago.

More recently we are getting a much better more grounded idea of what consciousness actually is .. and that its emergent as form of 'prediction' machine. In sense its our internal model of the world which we perceive as us.

Try 'Being You'.. Anil Seth.

He's far nearer the truth than Penrose.

I'll have a read, although I wouldn't presume as to which of them was closer to the truth and probably wouldn't do so even when I have had a good look at what Seth has to say.

Penrose is a bit unfashionable thanks to the AI crowd being somewhat offended by the idea that Penrose basically thinks creating genuine AI computers purely on a rules base isn't possible. Scientists are humans too with egos and the fashions in the scientific community as new areas of science expand don't necessarily reflect what's settled on as being right in the end. Newton and de Broglie went head to head with their respective particle v wave approaches to light, Newton basically won out through bullying de Broglie with his stellar reputation and pretty much leaving science believing light was particles and that was that for many many years; then along came Einstein years later showing they both had elements of the truth contained in their respective models.

I suspect the field is far too young though to really have an inkling of where the truth really is. In making a call this early, that in itself is a bit of a leap of faith. Looking for definitive answers in what they're talking about is completely missing the point though. It's the further questions raised that should remind everyone to have a bit of humility.

Edited April 17 by littleyellowbirdie

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

9 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

I'll have a read, although I wouldn't presume as to which of them was closer to the truth and probably wouldn't do so even when I have had a good look at what Seth has to say.

Penrose is a bit unfashionable thanks to the AI crowd being somewhat offended by the idea that Penrose basically thinks creating genuine AI computers purely on a rules base isn't possible. Scientists are humans too with egos and the fashions in the scientific community as new areas of science expand don't necessarily reflect what's settled on as being right in the end. Newton and de Broglie went head to head with their respective particle v wave approaches to light, Newton basically won out through bullying de Broglie with his stellar reputation and pretty much leaving science believing light was particles and that was that for many many years; then along came Einstein years later showing they both had elements of the truth contained in their respective models.

I suspect the field is far too young though to really have an inkling of where the truth really is. In making a call this early, that in itself is a bit of a leap of faith. Looking for definitive answers in what they're talking about is completely missing the point though. It's the further questions raised that should remind everyone to have a bit of humility.

Penrose is good at physics and cosmology - and yes a champion of QM (It's much of my first degree) so I don't doubt and QM underpins much of what we take for granted even in our macroscopic world (modern 'electronics' runs' on QM - conduction bands etc). However - his Quantum Mind theories have little or no evidence for. In layman's terms I think he's trying to find a spooky explanation for consciousness. Make it exotic. I don't think that's needed. Complexity does it for us.

However Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience. He's as respected / champion in his field (this field we are discussing) as Penrose is in his. That said I wouldn't trust Seth on Quantum Mechanics! His explanations/insight are much more grounded in experimental or observational evidence (sadly often when consciousness fails or falls apart - drugs, damage, sleep and of course in lesser creatures which nevetheless are clearly aware of self and as any dog owner can attest can even empathize / sense moods with you) without recourse or need of exotic physics. 

My eventual belief is that the 'soul' is an internal illusion to help our survival and make decisions. When we think 'consciously' we are actually running predictive/imaginary scenarios through our minds 'thinking' - a good evolutionary emergent trick to make good decisions (Stay in the tree until the lion goes away - by the way the lion's thinking about dinner too). I rather suspect in a sense all creatures do this with varying degrees of self-awareness / souls!

Edited April 18 by Yellow Fever

[dylanisabaddog 4,949]

12 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

That particular article was posted on April 1st, and the 'confirmed' was the April fools joke, but the thinking is genuine; the scientific community genuinely believes it's about a 50/50 chance that what we experience actually is a simulation.

This from Scientific American on the subject, but not on April 1st. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/

One small group of people in the scientific community believe there is a 50/50 chance we are living in a simulation. That is very different from 50% of the scientific community believing it. 

[dylanisabaddog 4,949]

12 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's not complicated. Atheism definitively rules out anything if we can't comprehend it.

 

Atheism is a lack of belief in God (or God's as there have been around 300 so far). It simply rules out God, nothing else. You can try and make it mean something else but you'd be wrong.

You are entitled to your opinion but you are trying to change the simple meaning of a word to support your own views. 

 

[sonyc 5,539]

48 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

My eventual belief is that the 'soul' is an internal illusion to help our survival and make decisions. When we think 'consciously' we are actually running predictive/imaginary scenarios through our minds 'thinking' - a good evolutionary emergent trick to make good decisions (Stay in the tree until the lion goes away - by the way the lion's thinking about dinner too). I rather suspect in a sense all creatures do this with varying degrees of self-awareness / souls!

Have you ever read Krishnamurti YF? He explores 'thinking' in a lot of his work and its illusive nature. His large body of 'work' (though he would have not called it that) focusses on who we think we are. 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

11 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Have you ever read Krishnamurti YF? He explores 'thinking' in a lot of his work and its illusive nature. His large body of 'work' (though he would have not called it that) focusses on who we think we are. 

Thank SC - Its not a name I'm familiar with.

[horsefly 4,310]

12 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

It's not complicated. Atheism definitively rules out anything if we can't comprehend it.

What utter rot. You can't rule something out that you can't comprehend because by that definition you can't comprehend what it is you're ruling out. Yet again you're trading on a completely fallacious account of what Atheism is. Atheism rests on the fundamental methodological principle that the justification of all beliefs must be founded upon some form of empirical experience. The atheist claims there is no empirical evidence that justifies a belief in God. Given that fundamental methodological principle, no genuine atheist who understands her position correctly would rule out the possibility that there ever could be such empirical evidence. If God were to appear before our eyes, perform all the extraordinary miracles for which she is famous in the bible, then we would have convincing empirical evidence, and all bar the most deranged atheists would become believers. Atheists don't rule out the existence of God by logical principle (which would be what is required to "definitively" rule out the existence of God). They express a belief that God doesn't exist on the grounds that there is no human experience or natural phenomena that requires the existence of God for it's explanation. In short, there is no evidence for the existence of God, ergo there is no evidence which would justify me believing in God. 

[Yellow Fever 3,807]

12 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

I'm sitting on a chair. It's a very fine wooden chair with carved legs and arm rests.  Now I know nothing about the creator of this chair and looking at the chair there are very few clues about the creator of this fine piece of furniture, but I have a very deep faith that there was a creator because I can see the chair, sit in it and know that nothing exists that hasn't been created from other things. 

So my faith for a creator of everything comes from the evidence of a universe full of things that are created, were created and will be created.  The Bible talks about the world beginning with light and science is beginning to understand that the universe did begin with light. 

As a species we have arrived on the scene a few thousand years ago in a universe that has been around for billions of years, so it hardly surprising we don't know very much. Don't be impatient lads. 

The natural question is if a creator created everything, who created the creator? The answer is sadly we may never know.  We can experience the creation to know there must be a creator but we can't experience the creator to know what the creator is. 

Perhaps we will find out after we die. Or if you have been lucky enough to experience the divine you may have experienced something of the creator already. 

Not to be tricky RTB - but your whole assumption above about a creator is based on the notion of forward linear time. In physics you can actual reverse time and everything still makes 'sense'. Time (and passage off) itself is even in our limited 20th century understanding varies with gravity (GPS needs correcting because of it). It stops on the event horizon of black hole looking in.  Indeed is time actually real or just our way of understanding / predicting the universe. Most theories about the so called big bang actually have time starting then - there was not a before in our sense. Is 'time' 'emergent' too? 

To be religious  - in the beginning there was however the equations, the maths - the 'word'....

There is another philosophy which holds we are all nothing but mathematical constructs - equations - what can exist mathematically, will exist etc.

[TheGunnShow 5,956]

13 minutes ago, horsefly said:

What utter rot. You can't rule something out that you can't comprehend because by that definition you can't comprehend what it is you're ruling out. Yet again you're trading on a completely fallacious account of what Atheism is. Atheism rests on the fundamental methodological principle that the justification of all beliefs must be founded upon some form of empirical experience. The atheist claims there is no empirical evidence that justifies a belief in God. Given that fundamental methodological principle, no genuine atheist who understands her position correctly would rule out the possibility that there ever could be such empirical evidence. If God were to appear before our eyes, perform all the extraordinary miracles for which she is famous in the bible, then we would have convincing empirical evidence, and all bar the most deranged atheists would become believers. Atheists don't rule out the existence of God by logical principle (which would be what is required to "definitively" rule out the existence of God). They express a belief that God doesn't exist on the grounds that there is no human experience or natural phenomena that requires the existence of God for it's explanation. In short, there is no evidence for the existence of God, ergo there is no evidence which would justify me believing in God. 

This is precisely what I like about Hitchens's Razor - it helps provide some clarity of thought by reinforcing the notion that the onus of evidence is on that person making the claim. An atheist is simply saying "where's the evidence for a god's existence?"

As I said in my previous post, it's basically all about the "god of the gaps". Can't explain it - just say a god did it. And it gets particularly shaky when they try to force codes of conduct based on it across society at large. The Abrahamic religions are all notoriously bad at this although some wings are more tolerant than others.