In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
comments on this.
To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
evil criminals of the world.
I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
stance.
Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
the Anglican Church.
It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited. It is
equally clear that such homophobic and sexist views are no longer
compatible with modern secular society. Yet who cares about the
values of modern secular society when you are in possession of the
ultimate values of god on such matters? Surely no Theist in their
right minds would support the implementation of modern secular values
over those of their God?
So what is going on here? Why are Rowan Williams (The Archbishop of
Canterbury) and his pious followers trying to manipulate the word of
their god in order to make it more palatable to us fallible sinners?
I can draw only one conclusion to this question which is this:
Rowan Williams and many of his supporters don’t actually believe what
they profess to believe. As Daniel Dennett has pointed out there are
many people who “believe in belief” without actually believing those
beliefs to be true. I think that these liberal Anglicans think that
belief in Jesus Christ is a good thing for society and a good thing
for them personally as their jobs hinge on people holding such a
belief. They don’t believe we are being watched by a Omnipotent being
who cares about our every day affairs, they don’t believe this being
sent himself down to the middle east to have himself killed to save
our sins. If they truly did hold such beliefs they would not be
attempting to conflate the words of such a being to make them conform
to the values of modernity.
I therefore can have sympathy with outdated views of the conservative
Anglicans as they truly believe they are spreading the word of their
God. The Archbishop and his liberal follower are trying to con people
by professing beliefs they do not actually hold. If they did hold the
beliefs they professed they would not be trying to change the values
revealed to them by their god to conform with modern secular values.
There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
On Jul 2, 3:02 am, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
LL: Yes, and plenty of them are in the Anglican Church. When my father
in law was and officer in the British Army during WWII, he noticed
that the officer doing intake asked each recruit his religion. My
father in law asked him what he did with the atheists. The officer
said, "We figure they're the same as the Anglicans."
> In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> comments on this.
> To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> evil criminals of the world.
> I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> stance.
> Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> the Anglican Church.
> It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited. It is
> equally clear that such homophobic and sexist views are no longer
> compatible with modern secular society. Yet who cares about the
> values of modern secular society when you are in possession of the
> ultimate values of god on such matters? Surely no Theist in their
> right minds would support the implementation of modern secular values
> over those of their God?
> So what is going on here? Why are Rowan Williams (The Archbishop of
> Canterbury) and his pious followers trying to manipulate the word of
> their god in order to make it more palatable to us fallible sinners?
> I can draw only one conclusion to this question which is this:
> Rowan Williams and many of his supporters don’t actually believe what
> they profess to believe. As Daniel Dennett has pointed out there are
> many people who “believe in belief” without actually believing those
> beliefs to be true. I think that these liberal Anglicans think that
> belief in Jesus Christ is a good thing for society and a good thing
> for them personally as their jobs hinge on people holding such a
> belief. They don’t believe we are being watched by a Omnipotent being
> who cares about our every day affairs, they don’t believe this being
> sent himself down to the middle east to have himself killed to save
> our sins. If they truly did hold such beliefs they would not be
> attempting to conflate the words of such a being to make them conform
> to the values of modernity.
> I therefore can have sympathy with outdated views of the conservative
> Anglicans as they truly believe they are spreading the word of their
> God. The Archbishop and his liberal follower are trying to con people
> by professing beliefs they do not actually hold. If they did hold the
> beliefs they professed they would not be trying to change the values
> revealed to them by their god to conform with modern secular values.
> There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
> In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> comments on this.
> To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> evil criminals of the world.
> I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> stance.
> Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> the Anglican Church.
> It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited.
(snip)
The rest of your post depends on this statement.
Do you think that you can only call yourself a Christian if you take
everything in the Bible to be taken literally ?
On Jul 2, 6:02 pm, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> (drivel deleted)
> There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
Many of the Anglicans who condemn homosexuality and women
priests probably don't uphold or support the ritual laws proscribed
in Leviticus. Are they not really Anglicans either ?
On 3 Jul, 06:56, Jim Gunson <rong...@hotmail.com> wrote:
I am making no judgements about who is a Christian and who is not , as
far as I am concerned I am happy to accept that anyone who calls
themselves a Christian is a Christian.
My point is merely that many of these Anglicans do not actually hold
the beliefs they profess to believe. If they believe an all powerful
agent is watching us and has tried to communicate a message to us then
that message is actually quite clear. God does not approve of
homosexuality. The view on female bishops is less clear as the
ordination of bishops is not discussed in the bible but a reading of
the bible seems to suggest that men should be in the position of
spreading the word of god more than women should.
Its takes more than a non literal reading of the bible to come up with
a different view, it involves blatantly ignoring the messages it
communicates to us and that is why I claim they cannot actually
believe what they profess to believe.
Do you have a different “non literal” interpretation of the bible
which explains how god actually has no problem with homosexuality or
female bishops?
> On Jul 2, 6:02 pm, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> > In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> > Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> > comments on this.
> > To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> > schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> > situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> > about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> > bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> > arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> > Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> > evil criminals of the world.
> > I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> > make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> > will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> > details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> > stance.
> > Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> > the Anglican Church.
> > It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> > traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> > church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited.
> (snip)
> The rest of your post depends on this statement.
> Do you think that you can only call yourself a Christian if you take
> everything in the Bible to be taken literally ?
On 3 Jul, 07:01, Jim Gunson <rong...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 2, 6:02 pm, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> > (drivel deleted)
Thanks for that :0
> > There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
> Many of the Anglicans who condemn homosexuality and women
> priests probably don't uphold or support the ritual laws proscribed
> in Leviticus. Are they not really Anglicans either ?
Why do you think I am accusing anyone of not being an Anglican?
Perhaps if you had read the drivel I had written rather than just the
last line you might have been able to ask a question that was relevant
to it.
It is plain that with each new schism one group tries to make religion
more palatable , whilst the traditionalists continue to insist upon
traditional values. What they do is shoot themselves in the foot. If
there is but one god then how is it he can speak with so many
contradictory faces? Each schism is a nail in the coffin of religion.
And whilst the Schism might be more palatable to the current
generation, they in term become the traditionalists of the future.
One might argue that this is religion evolving into an new an improved
god-friendly version. But the truth is otherwise.
Both Christianity and Islam are schisms of Judaism. But even the Jews
cannot agree on the true form of their religion: they cannot agree
whether to wash their hands 6 times or 8 times in the morning and
doing the bread ritual everytime they want a bit of toast keeps making
them late for work in the morning. Worst still not being able to put a
cup of milk on the same table as a beef sandwich makes tea-time a
fucking nightmare. But herein lies the root to re-make Christianity in
its original and pure form. Wouldn't you just prefer to keep eating
pork sausages when you want? Sadly to do so is to reject the true
religion from which all schisms have derived.
On Jul 2, 11:02 am, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> comments on this.
> To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> evil criminals of the world.
> I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> stance.
> Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> the Anglican Church.
> It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited. It is
> equally clear that such homophobic and sexist views are no longer
> compatible with modern secular society. Yet who cares about the
> values of modern secular society when you are in possession of the
> ultimate values of god on such matters? Surely no Theist in their
> right minds would support the implementation of modern secular values
> over those of their God?
> So what is going on here? Why are Rowan Williams (The Archbishop of
> Canterbury) and his pious followers trying to manipulate the word of
> their god in order to make it more palatable to us fallible sinners?
> I can draw only one conclusion to this question which is this:
> Rowan Williams and many of his supporters don’t actually believe what
> they profess to believe. As Daniel Dennett has pointed out there are
> many people who “believe in belief” without actually believing those
> beliefs to be true. I think that these liberal Anglicans think that
> belief in Jesus Christ is a good thing for society and a good thing
> for them personally as their jobs hinge on people holding such a
> belief. They don’t believe we are being watched by a Omnipotent being
> who cares about our every day affairs, they don’t believe this being
> sent himself down to the middle east to have himself killed to save
> our sins. If they truly did hold such beliefs they would not be
> attempting to conflate the words of such a being to make them conform
> to the values of modernity.
> I therefore can have sympathy with outdated views of the conservative
> Anglicans as they truly believe they are spreading the word of their
> God. The Archbishop and his liberal follower are trying to con people
> by professing beliefs they do not actually hold. If they did hold the
> beliefs they professed they would not be trying to change the values
> revealed to them by their god to conform with modern secular values.
> There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
> On Jul 2, 6:02 pm, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> > In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> > Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> > comments on this.
> > To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> > schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> > situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> > about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> > bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> > arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> > Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> > evil criminals of the world.
> > I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> > make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> > will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> > details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> > stance.
> > Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> > the Anglican Church.
> > It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> > traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> > church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited.
> (snip)
> The rest of your post depends on this statement.
> Do you think that you can only call yourself a Christian if you take
> everything in the Bible to be taken literally ?
Many Christians feel that Biblical Literalism is a prerequisite for
salvation.
Who are you to say otherwise?
How do you know which parts of the Bible are safe to ignore and which
are to be taken seriously? Is there not a danger that god will judge
you poorly if you only chose to observe the easy stuff?
You have to remember that Anglicanism is an artificial 'religion'. It
was constructed by Henry VIII in order to get divorces. It remains a
political entity to this day. The Queen is Defender of the Faith, a
similarly artificial title intended to contribute to the survival of
the House of Windsor by allying it with Anglicanism and thereby
gaining the sympathy of those who support Anglicanism.
Rowan Williams is an idiot and should not be taken seriously.
Anglicanism is dying out in the U.K. and should disappear by the end
of the century. It is being overtaken by Islam and Hinduism for
dominance there.
On Jul 2, 6:02 am, Kippers <ro...@croft6942.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> In case anyone is not aware of the current problems in the Anglican
> Church here is a link to short news story on the matter. Below are my
> comments on this.
> To an atheist it really can be bemusing to witness deep theological
> schisms ripping through a religious denomination as is the current
> situation with the Anglican Church. Listening to bishops arguing
> about whether god condemns homosexuality and whether he finds women
> bishops distasteful or not reminds me of listening to two children
> arguing over whether superman’s flying powers are superior to Mr
> Fantastic’s ability to stretch his limbs when it comes to catching the
> evil criminals of the world.
> I know this attitude will seem insulting, but listening to those who
> make a living and invest much of their lives in trying to discern the
> will of a mythical being relating to the most intricate and trivial
> details of human life, seems to me, ridiculous enough to take such a
> stance.
> Anyway I have a conjecture about why such a division is emerging from
> the Anglican Church.
> It is clear, that a plain reading of the bible supports the
> traditionalist Anglicans who want homosexuality condemned by the
> church and the ordination of female bishops to be prohibited. It is
> equally clear that such homophobic and sexist views are no longer
> compatible with modern secular society. Yet who cares about the
> values of modern secular society when you are in possession of the
> ultimate values of god on such matters? Surely no Theist in their
> right minds would support the implementation of modern secular values
> over those of their God?
> So what is going on here? Why are Rowan Williams (The Archbishop of
> Canterbury) and his pious followers trying to manipulate the word of
> their god in order to make it more palatable to us fallible sinners?
> I can draw only one conclusion to this question which is this:
> Rowan Williams and many of his supporters don’t actually believe what
> they profess to believe. As Daniel Dennett has pointed out there are
> many people who “believe in belief” without actually believing those
> beliefs to be true. I think that these liberal Anglicans think that
> belief in Jesus Christ is a good thing for society and a good thing
> for them personally as their jobs hinge on people holding such a
> belief. They don’t believe we are being watched by a Omnipotent being
> who cares about our every day affairs, they don’t believe this being
> sent himself down to the middle east to have himself killed to save
> our sins. If they truly did hold such beliefs they would not be
> attempting to conflate the words of such a being to make them conform
> to the values of modernity.
> I therefore can have sympathy with outdated views of the conservative
> Anglicans as they truly believe they are spreading the word of their
> God. The Archbishop and his liberal follower are trying to con people
> by professing beliefs they do not actually hold. If they did hold the
> beliefs they professed they would not be trying to change the values
> revealed to them by their god to conform with modern secular values.
> There may be more atheists out there than we thought.
