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Sam Slater wrote:

> What are your thoughts? Does believing in something that you've
> no evidence for make you retarded..........like a belief in
> ghosts, or fairies?

It does not make you retarded (although there is some neurological evidence that some forms of religious beliefs are correlated to certain forms of brain damage), just a bit naive. Actually, if the angel Gabriel did appear in your dreams instructing you how to behave on a jury then chances are your belief may indeed partially caused by brain damage, and you should seek medical help.

But you are using the christian ideas. I imagine my idea of "God" is a lot different to alot of other peoples. If Gabriel came to me in my sleep then I would dismiss it as a dream brought on by the stress of the case I think the idea of blasphemy is a tool to keep people under control as such I dont believe that you cannot question. My religion demands evidence as without evidence there is nothing. A very old practitioner once said to me "we are a science first, a crutch second and a religion third." unfortunately greed has taken over much of the movement since then.

[quote]It's part of our conditioning as kids to want to believe in some higher power,[/quote]

I think that's also genetic. What mother and father says is unquestionably true. In our past, if father says 'be quite if you see a lion' then any species who's children question that command wouldn't last very long.

As we age, we learn for ourselves, but what we learn as children stays with us forever. The saying 'give me a boy until he's seven, and I give you the man' is pretty much true. What we learn up to that age are the basics for life. This is exactly why churches want children at such a young age. They know that even if you rebel the church in your teens, as an adult, you fall back into the beliefs you had as a child.

[quote]If we can jettison that belief system, that there is some guiding hand behind all that happens in the universe, then the nonsense of life at least makes some sense.[/quote]

I wouldn't say it makes sense; I'd say it just gives an explanation that's false, but easily accepted because it appeals to us. We are pattern seeking primates where everything has to have an explanation. If you lose your keys while alone in your house, and you find them in a place you know you've not been that day, it isn't enough that you found your keys again; we have to rack our brains trying to figure out how they got there, forgetting that it doesn't really matter. As Christopher Hitchens states, 'we nearly always prefer a conspiracy theory than no theory at all.'. We're programmed in a way that because we don't know how life began, we have to make something up until we do know.

Let's remember that before we knew about germs and viruses, all disease was a punishment from a God. The same goes for crop failures, storms and earthquakes. They were all punishments until we found out the truth, and all needed conspiracy theories, which were accepted by 99.9% of people. thank goodness for the 0.01% eh?

magoo wrote:

> Dawkins is a fundementalist and therefor a divvy and a prick. I
> pay him about as much attention as I do those southern nazi
> babtists ie none.

Dawkins has good reasons for his radicalism, though more w.r.t. the USA than Britain, in the kind of places where they decree that pi=3 and that God buried dinosaur skeletons to test our faith. Teaching schoolkids creationism as a better alternative to evolution is just wrong, and there is no point being polite or tolerant about it.

There is no place for religion in science.

As an individual you can be religious and be a scientist, and you may even take guidance about the directions of your research from your beliefs. But once you start justifying your results with religious beliefs you are toast.

So you're more of a deist then, h?

Lol..........I agree. I just used the word 'retarded' because it's emotive, and gets people to talk.

Sam Slater wrote:

> Agh Jacques.......an answer without sarcasm.........I thank
> you.


Yeah I must be slipping.

Anyway I was thinking about this. The Judicial system is based on the balance of probability, hence the scales of justice. Now if all the evidence points to guilty on the balance of probability and you are innocent then the court of law will find you guilty regardless. So Gabriel coming down and telling a juror that the person is innocent is actually doing the right thing. However this is considered attempting to pervert the course of justice by influencing a jury and so Gabriel ought to be put on trial himself.

lol........poor Gabriel. He was only the messenger. God put him up to it - the bastard.

No doubt Wazza has a view and we're waiting to hear (read) what it is?

Harmonyluvver wins!