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atheism is a matter of faith, not science: the debate continues

Following the letters page in last Wednesday's Metro and the follow-up comment on this post I’m pleased to see that the beginnings of a debate are brewing, and I intend to use this post to pick up the baton again. Unsurprisingly, I’m going to start by responding to the aforementioned comment. I apologise if my tone was deemed to be a bit sharp, but I have no hesitation in defending the point I was trying to make. According to dictionary.com , faith can be defined as “belief that is not based on proof.” As there is no proof that God does not exist, belief that God does not exist (i.e. atheism) must be faith. Now, I take your point that “as human beings we are always revising and fine tuning what we hold to be true based on the evidence to hand, what we discover and our ability to determine what is probable or improbable.” To digress slightly, that is why switching on the Large Hadron Collider is going to be something of a milestone, as it could eit...
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the purpose of religion

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo...
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Happily 'Married'?

In my usual perusing of the BBC News page, I came across this . 'Barbara Simpson, a deputy district judge in the family division and leading family law expert, said new rights would recognise there is little difference between living with a partner for years and looking after children - and doing the same as husband and wife. "This will address a terrible unfairness, and it's long overdue," she said.' Why is it 'terribly unfair'? No-one is denying such couples the option of marrying in the first place if they want to. And you have got to ask why 'if there is little difference...' people are so gutless and unable to make the step of comitting themselves to a marriage. Even if one isn't keen on a big wedding and making a thing of it, why not just pop along one afternoon to the registry office? After all, there seems to be little difference between some of the 'Living Together' clauses and the implications of being married. In many way...
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