Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:05 pm  

Mintball's post makes the real point. People say they are ethical, have morality, etc but as I have speculated umpteen times, that's more often than not because they or their parents were exposed to a degree of religion and of course our national and continental "culture" is Christian - a religion. Totalitarian regimes suppress religion for a reason - as it imbues a moral resistance to the states ideology.

As more generations are brought up without the "moral compass" of religion so our society will tend towards break down. Except, I do not believe it will because there will be a religious revival to fill the void.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:25 pm  

Dally wrote:

Mintball's post makes the real point. People say they are ethical, have morality, etc but as I have speculated umpteen times, that's more often than not because they or their parents were exposed to a degree of religion and of course our national and continental "culture" is Christian - a religion. Totalitarian regimes suppress religion for a reason - as it imbues a moral resistance to the states ideology.

As more generations are brought up without the "moral compass" of religion so our society will tend towards break down. Except, I do not believe it will because there will be a religious revival to fill the void.

Don't talk poop (again). Is it really your position that we need religion to know not to kill, or not to steal? If The Bible or The Koran had not been written, do you seriously believe that we'd all be unashamedly raping and enslaving one another?

Most people are good because they're good, not because a book tells them to be. Indeed, if you are only good because your religion tells you to be, then you're a pretty sh!tty human being.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:09 pm  

Rock God X wrote:

... Most people are good because they're good, not because a book tells them to be. Indeed, if you are only good because your religion tells you to be, then you're a pretty sh!tty human being.

This.

But I'd go further, too often religion removes the requirement to consider your conscience and allows one to outsource one's moral compass to someone's interpretation of what seemed like a good idea thousands of years ago when atoms, planets, the universe, other continents, evolution, refrigeration, cells, bacteria, etc etc were not even suspected never mind known about.
i.e. Knowledge was tiny compared with what we know today... and as knowledge increases, so old beliefs look more like superstitions.
Without a conscience and being genuinely answerable to ones own inner sense of right and wrong, one is falling way short of being able to claim that one is a "moral" person.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:49 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Without a conscience and being genuinely answerable to ones own inner sense of right and wrong, one is falling way short of being able to claim that one is a "moral" person.

Not only that, but most Christians ignore numerous Bible verses because they consider them to be irrelevant, outdated, or just plain old wrong.

Just a few examples from Deuteronomy:

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days."

"But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house."

“A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

"And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you."

And from Leviticus:

"You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material."

“If a man lies sexually with a woman who is a slave, assigned to another man and not yet ransomed or given her freedom, a distinction shall be made. They shall not be put to death, because she was not free; but he shall bring his compensation to the Lord, to the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram for a guilt offering."

"You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard."

"If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." (A big favourite of Dally's, no doubt)

"If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people."

So, if we know that keeping slaves, treating women as property and stoning rape victims is wrong, where does this knowledge come from? Not from the scripture, which wholeheartedly endorses such abhorrent practices, but from our own innate sense of what's acceptable and what is not.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:00 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

Why should a child with no religious beliefs be forced to make some meaningless "oath" to a "god" they have no belief in?

Wasn't guiding founded with a Christian ethos at heart?

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:09 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

Wasn't guiding founded with a Christian ethos at heart?

If being a girl guide was restricted only to those children who have Christian parents (I refuse to use the term 'Christian child'), they'd probably lose more than 70% of their membership overnight. If the girl guides are going to allow children whose parents are not Christians to be members, it makes sense not to compel them to pledge an oath to a 'God' they don't believe in, doesn't it?

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:36 pm  

Rock God X wrote:

If being a girl guide was restricted only to those children who have Christian parents (I refuse to use the term 'Christian child'), they'd probably lose more than 70% of their membership overnight. If the girl guides are going to allow children whose parents are not Christians to be members, it makes sense not to compel them to pledge an oath to a 'God' they don't believe in, doesn't it?

But wouldn't that be similar to sending your kids to church and then complaining when they're made to say prayers?

I don't expect that all girl guides would be Christian but if I sent my daughter there (that is if I had one) I wouldn't complain that she has to give an oath to God even though I don't attend church.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:36 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

Wasn't guiding founded with a Christian ethos at heart?

According to the woman who looked like she worked there on Breakfast this morning, no. According to the ranting Christian woman, yes

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:46 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

But wouldn't that be similar to sending your kids to church and then complaining when they're made to say prayers?

No. If you go to church, you go to pray. If you go to the girl guides, you go to tie knots and shlt.

Re: The Guides : Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:07 pm  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

Wasn't guiding founded with a Christian ethos at heart?

The Brownie pack that my two went to involved jumping over a toadstool in their initiations.

Thinking about it now, was that the Brownies or that druid cult that used the back room of the village hall on the same night, can't recall now, maybe we sent them into the wrong room.