It depends what you mean by fact. The rational discourse tests it's
facts against perceived evidence. Belief doesn't neccessarily, if
ever, over-ride evidence. Any religious discourse is short-circuited
by belief.
But yes, a set of stories. The trouble starts when the believers set
them up as more than stories, when the stories become interwoven with
politics, and the whole sorry mess gets woven into an us-against-them
rhetoric which helps no one but the war contractors.
I agree that both branches of god-botherers have a complex history,
some are benign, some are not. Still, I'd like to see the CofE protest
more against the treatment of Muslims; that the prosyletisation be
toned down.
Roger
On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 12:57 PM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I can understand you feeling that. I wasn't saying that they were
> necessarily pleasant.
>
> The Green Lane Mosque is right by where I grew up and what was the
> Green Lane Public Baths and Library (where my dad used to have to go
> once a week to pay for a bath and where I took out my first book of my
> own choice: the One Thousand and One Nights) is now, I understand, an
> Islamic Resource Centre.
>
> These things happen. Islam, like Christianity, is complex and
> many-layered culture, both repulsive and poetic, charitable and
> bigoted. Dawkins believes in the Evidence but he forgets that we're
> not, and are never likely to be, in Possession of the Facts.
>
> Just stories, and much over-written ones, and fragmented, at that.
>
> 2008/5/15 Roger Day <[log in to unmask]>:
>> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 9:47 PM, David Bircumshaw
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Ps Roger
>>>
>>> As for God is dead. Linguistically, culturally, psychologically, no: a
>>> visit to any mosque or evangelical church will demonstrate that to
>>> you.
>>
>> No thankyou - I couldn't the bigotry that goes on in those places:
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7401704.stm
>>
>> Dawkins hasn't - and probably never will - say that someone of a
>> religious persuasion should be "thrown off a mountain."
>>
>> Roger
>> --
>> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>> "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
>> She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
>> The Go-Betweens
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue
She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too"
The Go-Betweens
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